Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from Texas would like to finish his statement, I would be happy to yield him 5 minutes.

You had a lot of people speaking to your extraordinary career here, and I didn't want to cut it short. Your advice is sound and, hopefully, taken by all of us.

Thank you, Mr. Hall.

Apparently, a lot of people would agree given your extraordinary career and the work that you've done here in Congress over these many, many years and decades.

Part of what you've spent a good deal of your career working on, Mr. Hall, has been the improvement of the American economy. Tonight, I'd like to join a couple of my colleagues on the Democratic side to talk about the economy and to talk specifically about jobs and the things that we can do here in the waning days of this Congress to create some job opportunities.

We've got some very heavy lifting here in Congress in the next month and a half. Everybody wants to talk about the fiscal cliff. Some talk about an austerity bomb. Others talk about what needs to be done to lift the debt limit. All of these issues are before us--tax increases or not. Underlying all of that, foundational to all of that, is putting Americans back to work, getting Americans back into their jobs. If we do that, we will clearly increase employment. When you increase employment, you also increase tax revenue to the Federal Government, to State governments, and to local governments.

So our principal task, as I see it--and I think I'm joined by many of my colleagues, both Democrat and Republican--is to get the American economy going, to put it back in gear, and there are many reasons beyond just employment and the opportunities that families have to make it.

One of the critical elements in all of this is to protect Americans. We recently saw superstorm Sandy smash into New Jersey and New York. It had devastating results: loss of life, an incredible loss of property-- both public and private--and a very, very big cleanup bill. Joining me in a little while will be some of our Representatives from the State of New York, and they'll talk about that in detail. But before Sandy ever hit the coast, there was a need here in America to protect Americans from storms and floods. We know what happens when the protection isn't there--devastating results.

In the news today, in northern California, there was in the headlines a series of storms coming to northern California--into my district, where my home is. The word is to get ready for serious flooding. I mean, this is very early in the season; although, Californians with any memory at all will know that there are a series of infamous Christmas floods in northern California. Now, this is really a Thanksgiving flood potential, but nonetheless, it's there.

I will tell you clearly that the Sacramento region, which is the second most risky region in the Nation for flooding and flood damage, is right at the center of this storm. So that's the city of Sacramento. Perhaps 100,000 or more people are in serious jeopardy. Should a levee break in that region--and those levees are not up to 200-year standards--people would have less than 20 minutes to find high ground, to get out. It's an impossible situation. So we need serious infrastructure improvement--and that's Sacramento. The rest of my new district goes further north into Marysville and Yuba City, along the Sacramento River further north, and along the Feather and Yuba River-- again, communities at high risk. Serious infrastructure needs to be developed. Levees need to be improved, upgraded, enhanced; otherwise, citizens are at risk, just as they were on Staten Island.

This is our responsibility. This is not only a local responsibility and a State responsibility--this is a national responsibility. This is when we become a national community, looking out for each other--in providing the basic infrastructure to protect us. We also have infrastructure that is necessary for commerce: our roads, our highways, our Internet systems, our rail transportation systems. All of these infrastructure items are critical to the economic well-being of America in addition to the human and commerce safety of this Nation. We're going to talk about that tonight.

Joining me is my colleague from New York. He has been working on this issue for some time. He has a project and a program that he is proposing, one that caught my attention. I've asked him to come and join us.

In being from the State of New York, we are talking about something that's very, very real for you. Please tell us what this is all about.

Mr. Higgins, thank you so very, very much for bringing this issue in very stark terms to our attention. You caught my attention earlier when we were talking about this; but here on the floor, this is a $1.2 trillion program that could create 27 million jobs in the next 5 years, and those are economic analyses that have been done by the New America Foundation.

How do we pay for this again?

The same way we build and own our homes. We borrow the money to build that personal infrastructure, our home.

Now, the borrowing rate for the Federal Government on a 10-year note is a little over 1 percent or hovering around 1 percent now?

That's virtually free money.

Now, it does run up the debt; but we are using that money to create infrastructure, a necessary investment for the economy to grow and to protect ourselves.

Well, we saw what collapse can do with the Minnesota bridge and the loss of life. We saw what inadequate infrastructure protecting New Jersey and New York can do with extraordinary loss of public investment as well as private investment--and lives.

Joining us for this discussion on jobs and creating jobs is part of what we like to call the east coast-west coast team. Congressman Paul Tonko, you and I are often here on the floor to talk about how we can grow the American economy in a bipartisan way. This infrastructure notion that Mr. Higgins has brought to us I think has considerable merit and fits, I think, very easily with what President Obama has recommended in his American Jobs Act, which was an immediate $50 billion enhancement of the $60 billion that we would otherwise spend, bringing the total to over $100 billion in the coming year. Again, enormous infrastructure.

Mr. Tonko, I know you are up on this issue. We have spent time talking about it in the past. Why don't you share with us your thoughts.

It is all about jobs. Thank you very much, Mr. Tonko. Your personal experience in the New York Legislature and in your own community brings this issue into focus here on the floor of this House.

As we build this infrastructure, if we add one additional element to the creation of the infrastructure, something that, again, we've talked about here many times, and that is that we use our money, our taxpayer money, whether it's borrowed or directly paid, that we use that money to buy American-made equipment, so that the steel that goes into the bridges is American-made, the cement made in America, manufactured in America, that we use that American money on American-made equipment.

In other words, make it in America, so we not only are doing the infrastructure and the jobs that come with it, but we also use that to revitalize our manufacturing sector. This is a very powerful way in which we can more rapidly expand the American economy.

I just happen to have two bills that would do that, one for the clean energy industry. If we're going to use our taxpayer money to subsidize the clean energy industry, wonderful. We need to do that for all kinds of reasons, but buy American-made clean energy products, whether it's a solar system or a wind turbine.

And similarly, with regard to transportation, the trains, the buses, the steel, let's buy that in America, American manufacturing.

I noticed a lovely lady joining us from the State of Ohio. It would be Marcy Kaptur. You've talked about these issues many times. Thank you very much for joining us this evening.

I thought he was associated with Ohio as much as he is with New York. Isn't he on the border out there somewhere?

How correct you are to look back to those heroes of the past that laid down the infrastructure. You can actually go back a little bit further. George Washington, in his first year as President of the United States, instructed Alexander Hamilton to develop an industrial policy. One part of that industrial policy was the development of the infrastructure for America's commerce. And it was canals and it was ports and it was roads.

Mr. Higgins, so, how are we going to make this happen? You've got $1.2 trillion you want to put out there.

You said earlier that the American Society of Engineers--I think that was the name--said that we have a D rating for infrastructure, and that we need over $2 trillion.

I don't know anybody in my district, where we may have a serious flood in the next 3 days, that says the infrastructure is adequate. They're looking at those levees, and they're watching the water rise, and they're going, this isn't sufficient to protect us. So in a very real sense of just safety, infrastructure is needed. But also, it's needed for employment.

You correctly raised the issue of the veterans coming back, $2 trillion--there's no doubt about the need. America knows there's a need. As the four of us have discussed here, there is a need, even a crying need, and a human safety need right now, not tomorrow, not 10 years from now, but immediately.

The question is: How do we go about making that happen? And here 435 of us and 100 Senators on the other side of this building have the ability to answer the crying need of Americans to build our infrastructure, to give us the jobs to provide the foundation for economic growth, and to protect us. We have that power.

Let's continue our discussion.

Mr. Tonko.

There's a critical moment now. Right now. That moment is seen in the deliberations that are going on here in this Hall, in the Capitol, about the fiscal cliff, about the deficit. And there are those who would suggest that the only way to deal with it is with an austerity program, reduce government expenditures at every level.

There's some evidence cited by Mr. Higgins earlier that there's another way of dealing with this, and that is to put people to work, to use the power of government to put people to work, even if that means borrowing money at 1 percent. Putting it into an infrastructure bank to finance projects that have a cash flow, such as your sanitation facility in Toledo, Ohio, or a toll road or the St. Lawrence Seaway, all of which have a cash flow. You could maybe charge a percent and a half. You borrow at 1 percent, you charge a percent and a half, and we build. We put people to work.

Ms. Kaptur, why don't you pick this up, and then Mr. Higgins, and we'll carry on our conversation

As you were talking so enthusiastically, I was thinking of some of Carl Sandburg's incredible poetry on the power of America and all that was done there.

Mr. Higgins, you brought this to how we can finance our infrastructure, how we can Make It in America, create jobs. Why don't you carry on with that discussion--or take that anywhere that you would like to.

Mr. Tonko.

Earlier today I was asked by a reporter from San Francisco about the effect of sequestration and the austerity budget proposals on research in that area. The San Francisco Bay area is one of the great research centers in the world, with the University of California, the laboratory at Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore, Stanford and other institutions in the area. The austerity program that is being proposed will devastate the research.

Years ago--actually, in the mid-eighties, when I was in the California Legislature, we were talking about how to keep the California economy going, and I developed a plan, a program. There were five pieces to it. We've talked about all of those five today. Every one of those five were critical investments that the economy, the society would make.

The first was the best education system in the world. Now, America has an enormous challenge here and we're not measuring up as we should, and that should be a discussion we should have here on the floor perhaps at another day.

The second was the best research. The austerity budget that's out there, the sequestration and other proposals that have been put forward, slash the research budgets of the United States in health care, in energy, in transportation, in manufacturing, in those areas and in those areas that create opportunity.

The third is manufacturing, making things that come from that research and enhancing the current manufacturing technologies using, as you suggested a moment ago, Mr. Tonko, the advanced manufacturing technologies which come from research, and the engineering that goes with it that Ms. Kaptur discussed a few moments ago.

The fourth was infrastructure. You have to have the foundation for economic growth. Mr. Higgins brought to our attention the potential for 26-27 million jobs within the next 5 years by really going full on into building the American infrastructure, repairing what we have and building for the next generations.

The fifth was change. You have to accept change. That means that we have to learn from past experiences here in Congress. Mr. Higgins very correctly pointed out the economic history when a recession was about to recede because of government policies but austerity was implanted and a new recession commenced. We ought to take cognizance of that.

So we have to change and grow and learn. Those are the five things I often talk about.

Let's carry on this discussion. We have about another 10 minutes. And maybe if each one of us takes 2\1/2\ or so minutes, we can wrap up in time. I think I started with Mr. Higgins and then Ms. Kaptur, Mr. Tonko, and then I will say good night to all.

Mr. Higgins.

Ms. Kaptur.

Mr. Tonko, thank you very much. Ms. Kaptur, Mr. Higgins, thank you very much.

As I was listening to the three of you and thinking my own thoughts, I'm excited. I'm excited for the prospect of America. I can see the opportunities that are there. I can see the policies coming together. And each of the three of you described specific policies that we could put in place.

I don't know if we can get 27 million jobs from infrastructure. But I do know that we can get millions of jobs from an infrastructure program and, in so doing, lay the foundation for safety, from floods, fires, from other catastrophes that could occur. I know that in doing so, we can rebuild our manufacturing sector by using American-made products in that infrastructure program. I know that we can provide the jobs that Americans desperately want today--not just cheap jobs but real middle class jobs, as all three of you have described.

I am excited. I am excited about the prospect of building America, coming home from the wars and building America, as happened when my father came back from World War II. America went after building. Ms. Kaptur, you talked about the St. Lawrence Seaway. You talked about the interstate highway, that system that President Eisenhower talked about.

We are on the cusp of a new building in America. We have the wherewithal. We can finance it with really cheap money now. And we can use these projects to repay that money. It's a very exciting time. And it's our responsibility, as Representatives of the 300-plus million Americans, to enunciate that vision, to put in place those programs. And when we do, we'll make it in America. And Americans will make it.

Thank you so very, very much for joining us.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I join my colleagues here in Congress from both sides of the aisle to call for an end to the war in Afghanistan. After more than a decade of war, with now more than 2,000 lives lost and hundreds of billions of American tax dollars spent, it's time for our troops to come home to their families.

I represent the military communities of Travis Air Force Base, and come January I will represent the community of Beale Air Force Base as well. I can tell you from firsthand experience that the men and women who serve in our Nation's military and their families are America's finest. They are not afraid of sacrifice. They joined the armed forces because they love our country and they are willing to give everything to keep our Nation safe, but their sacrifice must be for a reason. If we're going to ask them to risk life and limb on the other side of the world, it must be for a mission that is vital to our Nation's security. We can no longer say that about the mission in Afghanistan.

Our brave soldiers are continuing to die in Afghanistan for what is now a war of choice. We sent them to eliminate the terrorists responsible for the terrible 9/11 tragedy, and they did it with remarkable courage and competence. The al Qaeda training camps have long been eliminated; most of al Qaeda's top leaders have been killed or captured; Osama bin Laden is long dead.

Terrorism remains a global threat, and we must combat it. But keeping tens of thousands of troops in a country the size of Texas is no way to achieve this objective. Rather, we must continue to use our superb intelligence capabilities and our special operation forces to root out the terrorist networks and destroy their leaderships wherever they may be.

When we do bring our troops home, we must ensure that our returning heroes receive the support that is their due when they get back. We must make sure that they have access to housing, medical care, employment, educational opportunities that they deserve, and we must take care of all of our veterans.

The war in Afghanistan has lasted 11 long years, and it must not last another. It's time to bring our troops home. And as we do so, we must turn our attention to rebuild America's economy. One way to do this is to focus on enhancing our green energy sector.

The American wind energy industry is in jeopardy. The production tax credit will end December 31, 2012. It must be extended or else 30,000 jobs will be lost and 450 manufacturing businesses will close.

Two additional measures must also be considered. First, we could apply the master limited partnership and the real estate investment tax programs to the green energy sector and, thereby, bring significant financing opportunities along with the production tax credit.

Mr. Speaker, we're back, and America expects that we ought to be going back to work. And we have a heavy load ahead of us. We want to make sure that every American has the opportunity to climb up that economic and social ladder as high as they want to and can go. So we have to make sure that those ladders of opportunity are in place.

We also have to make sure that we are a compassionate Nation, that we're willing to reach out to those in our country who have been harmed by devastating natural disasters. We certainly saw this on the east coast, and I'd like to spend a good portion of this hour talking about how we, as a Nation, can respond to superstorm Sandy and the lessons that we should learn from this disaster.

It's not the first that has occurred in America, and it's certainly not going to be the last. In previous disasters, we learned a few lessons, but it seems as though we have yet to achieve the necessary wisdom from those occurrences to really put in place the policies that can protect Americans.

First, our sense of compassion drives Americans to reach out in many different ways to assist those on the east coast that were so severely harmed by this storm. Our condolences go out to the families of those who were killed in the storm. Our wallets open to the American Red Cross and other organizations that are providing assistance. We should do that and we should do more of that, but as a Congress there are things that we must also do.

Proposals have been made on this floor to reduce the effectiveness and the support for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Not a good idea. It's very clear from the disaster on the east coast that a single city or State or even a region is unable to adequately address--whether in the lead-up to a disaster where there is warning or in the immediate aftermath of that--the necessary resources to assist and to recover. As a Nation, we need some mechanism to gather together all of the strength of this incredible country we call America and apply that strength to those who have been so severely harmed by that disaster. That's occurring. FEMA has clearly been significantly improved in the last 4 years and certainly since the tragedies of New Orleans, but there is much more that needs to be done.

As a Congress, as Representatives of the American people--people who may be in any part of this country and who at any moment could be affected by a disaster--we need to make sure that there is a national response capability in place that is ready to act with the sufficient resources. That's not just an organizational and administrative issue. That is also the necessary funds available. Shortchanging that money that we set aside for those disasters can lead to a period of time in which inaction is inevitable.

So as we go about our budgeting, as we go about our appropriations process, we must make sure that we do not shortchange and that we provide enough money, that we set it aside and have it there, available for immediate response. It's not just the Federal response. It's those private companies and others that will be hired by the Federal Government or the States and cities to provide the necessary services.

There are many other lessons to be learned from superstorm Sandy and from previous disasters. Early warning systems are essential. Yet we have seen proposals here before the Congress, in the budgets and appropriations before the Congress, to diminish the ability of America to see ahead--to be able to predict storms or earthquakes or fires--by diminishing the money available for NASA in their satellite technology and other research capabilities that are out there by which we can learn well ahead of a disaster that it's coming so that we can then warn the citizens and take whatever precautions are necessary and implement whatever defensive systems may be required.

So it's not just the disaster. It's the preparation. It's the early warning--the ability to know what may be coming to harm the citizens of this Nation. As a Congress, we should be cognizant of the role that we play in providing the resources, the direction, and the authorization for those agencies that are able to have the technologies to perceive, to understand what may be coming to the citizens of this Nation and to those around the world.

Secondly, as individuals, it seems to me we ought to be paying attention, and when the authorities say it's time to leave, we really ought to do that. I was the insurance commissioner and Lieutenant Governor in California, and I often found myself in situations where I had responsibilities along these lines. All too often and all too tragically, the citizens who were warned early that they should leave because of a fire danger did not. Tragedy struck and they lost their lives. So we have individual responsibilities as well as community responsibilities.

There is another set of lessons to learn from superstorm Sandy and the drought in the Midwest and from other occurrences in the weather patterns of this Nation, which is that climate change is real. It is real. It is actually happening as we speak. We know that the great ice caps around this world are diminishing. We know that the ocean levels are rising. We know that there is a warming across the entire planet, and we know that this will have profound effects.

It was predicted back in the early nineties when I was working on this issue at the Department of the Interior as Deputy Secretary. We predicted that

there would be superstorms, that there would be droughts in new parts of this Nation, that the ice caps would melt, that there would be significant changes in the agricultural patterns around the world, and that certainly there would be significant changes in the river and stream flows. In my own State of California, we anticipated then--some almost 20 years ago now--in the Sierras, which is our single biggest reservoir, that we would see the snow pack diminish and that we would see there would be changes in the flows of the rivers and, quite likely, greater flooding.

That brings us to the necessity of recognizing this as a Nation and for this Congress to work to address not just the reasons for climate change but, just as important, to prepare for the inevitability of the effects of climate change. A small rise in the sea level will certainly change the impact of major storms on all of our coastlines. The storm surges will be higher, the destruction greater, and therefore the twofold necessity: one, to do everything we possibly can to diminish climate change. That brings us to energy policy, which is not the subject of today's discussion; but it brings us, rather, to the issue of how we are going to effect and prepare for the inevitable changes.

A little over a year ago, the President proposed the American Jobs Act. In that American Jobs Act, there was a substantial increase--in fact, a very significant increase--in the amount of money that this Nation would spend on infrastructure. In addition to what we would normally do, the President proposed an additional $50 billion of infrastructure investment in the near term, over the next 2 to 3 years. Unfortunately, that proposal was not even brought up in the current Congress. Nonetheless, it is a proposal that we as Members of this House should give considerable thought to. I look now to the east coast and the west coast and to my own district in California, which is the Sacramento Valley, and I'm looking at the President's proposal of some $50 billion, and saying: What if? What if we would actually undertake a major infrastructure action in the United States? What if we were to really prepare ourselves for the inevitable climate change? What would it mean to Americans?

Certainly, right off, it would mean jobs. It would mean that we would be able to employ, perhaps, 2 million people immediately in building that infrastructure. It also means something beyond that. It could mean we would increase the deficit; or if we were wise, it could mean that we would not increase the deficit at all and that we would simply make some shifts in certain tax breaks that are now given to various parts of our economy--for example, to the oil and gas industry--and shift those tax breaks around so that we would fund infrastructure projects. In fact, that's what the President proposed to do.

Before I go further into how we might use the effort to build infrastructure, I want to say that that infrastructure program is going to be absolutely essential to rebuild an extraordinarily important part of this Nation; that is, the east coast.

New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and some parts of Pennsylvania were devastated. There is going to be a multibillion-dollar rebuilding program necessary just to go back to where those parts of this country were before the storm hit. Much more will be needed to protect those parts of this country from future storms that are certain to occur.

I'll let it go at that. I see my colleague from New York City has arrived here. I'd like her to pick this issue up and talk about the devastation that occurred in her communities, and then we can come back to the infrastructure.

Thank you for joining us, Nydia. I suppose the proper introduction would be Nydia Velazquez.

I thank you very much. Maybe we can engage in a little colloquy here, and we can talk about this in a little more detail.

The storm surge that came into New York was anticipated, but the New York/New Jersey region were not prepared with the necessary infrastructure to protect the communities from that surge. And if I understood you correctly, you're suggesting that the cities or the region needs to put in place those infrastructures to protect it. The subways have to be secured from the inflow of water, and the seawalls and certain other things need to be put in place. Did you estimate a cost of some $20 billion?

For New York City. Not including New Jersey?

I will share with you my experience in my part of California, which is the Sacramento Valley, the city of Sacramento and the surrounding area.

We have significant flood potential. In fact, the northern part of Sacramento is considered to be the most flood prone or dangerous city in America after New Orleans. That creates a need in my own region for some of those same protective measures. We call them levees, not seawalls, but rather levees. They have to be improved. We anticipate the cost in Natomas, which is part of Sacramento, to be well over $1.4 billion. Another city I represent, Marysville, needs some $20 million to protect that city, and then Yuba City next to it. The entire region that I represent has similar needs. I shouldn't use the word ``similar,'' because we're not on the ocean. But we have needs for flood protection just like New York City and New Jersey.

We can do this. We're a very strong and powerful Nation, and you couldn't be more correct by saying that if we do

it, we protect ourselves, we reduce the potential damage, and we also put people to work.

I know that you're deeply involved in small business. You're the ranking member of the Small Business Committee here in the House of Representatives. I would expect that there would be a significant opportunity for small businesses in this also.

I noticed that we've now been joined by another representative from an area that was significantly damaged, Mr. Pallone from New Jersey.

Perhaps you would like to share with us your thoughts and your experience. I did see you on CNN one night as you were working with your constituents trying to meet the disaster in your area.

Thank you very much, Mr. Pallone.

There is no part of this Nation that is immune from a natural disaster. The disasters will be different: tornadoes, superstorms, hurricanes, droughts, floods, and fires. The west coast, we talk earthquakes. You could talk

earthquakes on the east coast, and certainly the new Madrid fault in the central Missouri area ought to keep everybody a little bit nervous. So wherever it is around this Nation, the disasters could occur, and the response which you described is critically important, that is, the forewarning and then the response when the disaster actually hits.

But the preparation to put in place the infrastructure to best protect those critical parts of the communities, Ms. Velazquez talked about the refineries which were badly damaged by the storm. There are certain things that can be done to protect them; and in doing so, you protect your power supplies, the grid systems, seawalls and the like. All of these things are critically important.

I remember last year I was on this floor with my colleague from the New York area who was deeply concerned about another storm that came through. Was it Irene, I believe, that came through the northeast and created significant damage. Mr. Paul Tonko, you spoke with great skill and compassion about your citizens, their lessons learned, and things to share with us today.

Representative Tonko, once again, it's good to be with you on the floor, sadly reliving what you and I discussed here almost a year ago in response to Hurricane Irene and the devastation that occurred in your community.

It seems to me that there are many, many lessons to learn here, some of which I talked about before you came in. Certainly the ability to know well ahead of time what is coming.

We saw with Hurricane Sandy that NASA was able to anticipate, the Weather Service was able to anticipate the nature of the storm and where it was going. That ability to understand what is happening and what is likely to happen really comes from the support of the Federal Government appropriating money to those agencies and then directing those agencies to provide those services. This is something we need to keep in mind.

As we go through the deficit reductions that we must do, we must begin a prioritization of those things that are critical to the well- being--indeed, the lives--of Americans.

We also know that we are going to have to rebuild. Ms. Velazquez was suggesting that it was going to cost some $20 billion for New York City alone. And Mr. Pallone didn't give us a number, but we can anticipate billions for the New Jersey area. And then the areas in upstate New York and Pennsylvania with lesser numbers, fortunately. But nonetheless, it begins to add up to a huge amount of money. And some of the damage is not well known even today.

I was talking with representatives of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 500 of whom came from northern California to assist in New York, and we were talking about what those men and women were doing. They said, in the subway systems that were flooded, they were flooded with seawater. And the effect of salt on the electrical systems is--it's over. You've got to replace the entire electrical system. But not just to replace it, but to then anticipate that it could happen again, so to upgrade the entire infrastructure, to provide the protection that should it happen, you won't lose the entire subway system as has occurred in New York City.

So we need the infrastructure to be replaced but then also to be significantly enhanced. This is a very, very expensive proposition. It's also a way

in which people could go back to work and we could enhance the employment. We can do this. In fact, indeed, we must do it.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has said clearly that the infrastructure of America--not just New York City and New Jersey, but my own State of California, the flood control systems we have in our State are woefully inadequate, and they address it as a D. Fortunately, not an F. But not an A, not a B, not a C, but a D. So we know that we have extraordinary needs here.

The President, in his American Jobs Act, proposed a $50 billion addition to what we normally do with our infrastructure, which is a lot, an additional $50 billion to be spent in 2 to 3 years. That's a critical boost. And I know the cities I represent--the Sacramento area; Natomas area, one of the most dangerous places in America for flooding; Marysville and Yuba City; the delta, where I live--are all subject to flooding. We need to enhance our levees in order to protect ourselves, not from a 100-year, but from a 200-year storm, which is much more likely to occur.

We can pay for these things. This doesn't have to add to the deficit. For every dollar we put into infrastructure, we get $2-plus back in economic growth. So it's actually an investment, a short-term and long- term investment that will last for years.

There's another thing that we have which is no longer authorized. Part of the Recovery Act, the stimulus bill, was the creation of Build America Bonds. The President proposed that as part of his infrastructure program, the Build America Bonds, which are called BABs--it took me a while to figure that one out. But BABs, Build America Bonds, are partly funded by the Federal Government and partly funded by the local agencies and had an enormous effect on enhancing infrastructure, sanitation systems, water systems in communities.

Let's talk a little bit about these kinds of things, the effect that they may have on your communities in New York, Pennsylvania, and others.

You've raised some, I think, very, very important points.

These are not partisan issues. This is not Democratic or Republican. Over the years both parties have been champions of infrastructure investment, and both parties have been very clear about the need to respond to the disasters that have occurred.

We need to be ahead of this, and we need to work together. It's our responsibility, 435 of us here in the House of Representatives, as we end this session, we should be willing to step forward in the lame duck session, provide the resources that are needed immediately, if they are not now available, for the rebuilding, for the humanitarian efforts and the recovery that's necessary.

Then, we should, although I don't know that this would happen, we should take that step forward to put in place those programs that will create an infrastructure that will protect Americans from the occurrences that we know have happened and will happen in the future.

You've mentioned one that I think is very important, an infrastructure bank, together with the Build America Bonds, shifting unnecessary tax breaks from one industry back into others so that we can build. As we do this, as we do this rebuilding, as we do these infrastructures, it comes to my mind, something you and I have spent many days talking about here on the floor, is that we make it in America, that we use American-made equipment to build these projects, we use American-made equipment and supplies in the construction activities.

In doing so, we not only put in place the infrastructure, which is an investment for the long term, but we also build and rebuild the American manufacturing sector.

So we can have a win, and a win, and another win. So, we can have a triple win here if we are wise in putting our policies together.

I know that many of our colleagues on the Republican side have taken up these issues. We have time, 2 months now in this session, to deal with this. Obviously, we have the big deficit issue. But we also know that in that deficit issue, we cannot forget the immediate needs of America, and the long-term benefits that come from strategic investments.

I'll wrap with this, and then if you would care to call this a session.

I was flipping through the channels trying to find the latest news on the current scandal in Washington, and I came across, I think it must have been a PBS show on the Brooklyn Bridge. I think it was David McCullough who had written a book on the Brooklyn Bridge. And the 150th anniversary of

the Brooklyn Bridge is this year or maybe next year. It's in this period of time. It's a piece of infrastructure that has served New York City, and in a larger context, the Nation, for 150 years.

So, what we can do now as we rebuild New York, New Jersey, and the other areas, and, please, California also, as we protect ourselves from these natural disasters, we will put in place investments that will serve for multiple generations into the future.

Now, that's a capital investment with an enormous return, as the Brooklyn Bridge was 150 years ago.

So, we have these opportunities, and we ought to take advantage of them, not just for humanitarian reasons, but also for immediate jobs and long-term investments. That's our task. That's what we ought to be about. Not a Democrat, not a Republican idea, but a true American idea that goes way back to the very early ages of our country.

Mr. Tonko, if you'd care to wrap, we'll call this a day.

Thank you, Mr. Tonko, and I thank Mr. Pallone and Ms. Velazquez.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate three local heroes from the 10th District of California, Keshia Baker, Natalie Coughlin and Heather Petri. At the 2012 London Olympic Games Keshia won the gold medal in the Women's 4x400m relay, Natalie won the Bronze in the Women's 4x100m freestyle swimming relay and Heather won gold as part of the Women's Water Polo team. These three inspiring women having assured places on the storied list of Olympians from our district, and have become role models of our community.

Keshia was a first time Olympian in London but you wouldn't know by the way she carried herself. Keshia graduated from Fairfield High in 2006 whereupon she attended the University of Oregon. In between setting athletic records at Oregon, Keisha started her own non-profit supporting young disadvantaged student athletes as well as graduating with Honors in Psychology.

Natalie is an Olympic veteran and a national household name who has performed at an amazing level as a member of the US Women's swimming team since 2004. Winning her 12th medal at the London games, Natalie has tied two others as the most highly decorated female Olympians in American history. As a lifelong resident of Vallejo and a graduate of my alma mater CAL, Natalie is and will continue to be an inspiration within our community.

Heather, a four-time Olympic veteran, has competed at a winning level for the past 12 years. Due in no small part to her excellent leadership and tenacity, the US Women's Water Polo Team earned gold in London. This was her fourth Olympic medal. Even at a young age Heather was an exceptional athlete; a founding member of her high school team, and a highly decorated college athlete from CAL, her success has been no surprise to our community.

Olympians are more than just exceptional athletes, they are exceptional Americans. Their ability to hurdle any obstacle, to apply hard work, dedication and perseverance to their goals embodies the best of the American spirit and the American people; they are role models to us all and ambassadors for America and we thank them.

Mr. Speaker, today is a day of reflection and sadness, and also determination and resolve. The tragic killing of our Ambassador in Libya and his staff should remind us all of the dangers that exist around the world. So we offer our prayers to the families and to the survivors.

We also need to think about the future in America and about the necessity for developing alternative energy systems. The production tax credit for wind is absolutely essential. I represent two major wind farms, one in Solano and the other in Alameda County. Thousands of jobs across this Nation will be lost unless we extend the wind tax credit. Keep in mind that for a century we have subsidized the oil and gas industry. It's time for us to

provide the support necessary to create this industry.

We also ought to be making it in America. One of my bills, H.R. 6217, would require that 85 percent of the content of these turbines and solar systems be made in America.

Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday, July 25, 2012, I was called away from the votes here on the House Floor in order to address an important announcement regarding the Bay Delta Conservation Plan in California. The joint announcement from California Governor, Jerry Brown, and United States Secretary of Interior, Ken Salazar, will have huge implications for my constituents and all Californians. Therefore, I felt it was absolutely necessary to address my concerns regarding the new plan. Nevertheless, I realize the importance of the votes I missed. Therefore, I would like to state for the record how I would have voted on the bills that were before the House of Representatives, yesterday.

First, I would have supported H.R. 459, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2012. I would have opposed H.R. 6082, the Congressional Replacement of President Obama's Energy-Restricting and Job-Limiting Offshore Drilling Plan. Lastly, I would have supported H.R. 6168, President Obama's Proposed 2012-2017 Offshore Drilling Lease Sale Plan Act.

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the privilege. And thank you, to my colleagues in the Republican Doctors Caucus, for a most interesting but factually incorrect 45 minutes of debate here.

We really were going to spend this evening talking about jobs and about the American Jobs Act and one of the great ``woulda, coulda, shoulda's'' of our time. But we're going to hold that for just a few moments, though, because there are a few things that really need to be discussed from the last half-hour.

First of all, most of the discussion was about Medicaid. That's a national program in which the Federal Government pays about 50 percent--it varies State to State, but roughly 50 percent of the cost of providing medical services to the poor, women, and children in the States.

Now the debate was most interesting in that the argument was that there would be a lack of access and simultaneously an argument that there were no cost controls. Yet if you were listening to our esteemed colleagues, you would have heard them say, The doctors are not paid enough.

I think if they're not paid enough, and the doctors want to get paid more in order to provide services, then the costs are going to go up. So the cost control argument here doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If you want to keep the costs down, you need to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the system.

Certainly certain services within the Medicaid and Medi-Cal, as we call it in California, are not paid sufficiently. Some other services are paid more than enough. So you need to balance that up over time. And all of these programs are run by the States. It's really the State that decides what the reimbursement rate is going to be. The Federal Government then matches the State's contribution.

So the argument really didn't make a whole lot of sense. And even more so, in the Ryan Republican budget, which has passed this House twice now, there is a significant reduction in the educational services for doctors so that the money that we, all Americans, spend to educate doctors--particularly in that part of the program, both the basic education and then in the residency programs--the Ryan Republican budget significantly reduces the amount of money available for residency programs for family care practices, for the very basic programs that we all want to access.

For family care, for basic care, that money is reduced. You go, wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense. If you are down here on the floor arguing that there is an insufficient number of doctors and they are not paid enough, then don't argue at the same time that it is too expensive and there are not enough cost controls; and please don't argue that there are not enough doctors because, in fact, the Affordable Care Act expanded the number of residencies for very basic care, for the family practice programs. I'm not quite sure I understand what they are arguing.

In addition to that, access across this Nation for millions and millions of people is provided in clinics. These are the

community clinics that a large population attend for their basic services, and most of those are the Medi-Cal or Medicaid population and the very poor that are not yet enrolled in what will be the expanded ObamaCares--the ObamaCares program.

So what do the Republicans offer us?

The Ryan Republican budget would cut by more than a third the support for the clinics, closing thousands of clinics across the Nation and in my State where people get access. So please do not come down here on the floor and argue for an hour or half an hour that access is being delayed when on the one hand you are cutting the money for access. That's what the Ryan Republican budget does. It cuts the money for access by reducing the residencies and reducing access to clinics by cutting by more than a third the money that is there to build up the clinics, the community clinics where people get care.

I'm going to take a deep breath here because I don't want to get wound up too tight about this issue, and I want to ask my colleague from New York, Mr. Paul Tonko, to talk about the Medicare aspects of this.

Let me pick up on that, Mr. Tonko. You are quite correct, it is not just an attempt. There have been 33 votes on this floor by the Republican majority to either terminate completely or to eviscerate in part the Affordable Health Care Act. Now, what would be eviscerated?

First of all, the Ryan Republican budget would terminate Medicare as we know it and give to every American who is not yet 55 years of age a coupon that basically says this coupon is worth 70 percent of the cost of insurance. Go get your insurance when you become 65 from a private insurance company. No longer would Medicare be available to all of those people who will eventually be 65. And for those people who are 55 to 65, it makes it impossible for Medicare to go forward on a financial basis because it takes away the younger people.

I heard something on the floor which I just said--wait a minute--some statistic that was tossed out here just a few moments ago that more people die on Medicare than die on regular insurance. Yes, Medicare is for the elderly. Medicare is for the elderly. Yes, they do get medical care but eventually they get old; and I will, too, be on Medicare, and I will die on Medicare. And I am so grateful to have Medicare available to me when I become 65 because I know that I have a solid insurance program. I know that I'll be covered, and I know that my younger brother and sister will be covered when they become 65. They will have quality care. And guess what, they will die on Medicare. Yup, that happens. You're on Medicare for the rest of your life. It may be for a year. It may be for 30 years. But for whatever, you've got a guaranteed benefit that is available to you.

And what do you lose if the Ryan Republican budget and the effort to repeal Medicare is lost? Well, let's see. Nearly 13 million Americans will benefit from $1.1 billion in rebates from their private insurance companies that are presently overcharging them. Hmm. And 86 million Americans, including 54 million Americans on private policies and 32 million Americans that are on Medicare, will lose their free preventive services.

Now, you want to reduce the cost of health care, then you've got to make sure that people stay healthy as long as possible. And how do you do that? Blood pressure. You want to deal with blood pressure, okay, it is very cheap, if you get your medicine. But you have to find out about it, so you need that free checkup. Diabetes, stroke, all of those things can be delayed and often prevented if you know it's coming. So what are we talking, 32 million seniors will no longer have a free checkup, preventive services.

In August, just a week from now, women will begin receiving free coverage for comprehensive women's preventive services--pap smears, breast cancer checkups. You want to repeal that? That's what the Republicans have voted 33 times to do--repeal the free checkups for women in America.

105 million Americans will have a lifetime limit once again. Today, they do not have a limit.

So if you're 30 years old, you have a private insurance policy and you get cancer, you'll hit that lifetime limit immediately. Not under the ObamaCares program. In that program, there are no lifetime limits, and you will continue to receive the medical benefits.

Well, exactly so. For 8 years in the early nineties and then in 2000, I was the insurance commissioner in California. I wish I had this law because I could have held the insurance companies responsible.

Now, my attitude about them is they always put profit before people. However, the Affordable Care Act has what we call the Patient's Bill of Rights, and this is the insurance discrimination that is eliminated by this law. And you spoke of a couple of these issues.

Discrimination against a woman simply because they're a woman. They have an existing condition. They're a woman. They could get pregnant. So the insurance companies would not cover or they would charge more. Those days are over.

Also, a young child, there are about 17 million children in America with preexisting conditions that can no longer be discriminated against by the insurance company. They have to be able to get insurance from an insurance company, 17 million children, one of whom is the son of my chief of staff, born with kidney failure. He had insurance the day he was born. He immediately lost insurance because he had kidney failure, and today, as soon as he leaves his parents' policy, which he's able to get now under the law because they cannot discriminate against children, he will be able to continue to get insurance. Under the old law, repeal the ObamaCares law and he will be denied insurance because there is an end to the Patient's Bill of Rights.

The Patient's Bill of Rights guarantees that insurance discrimination is over.

So what do they want here? What do the Republicans want from Americans? A big question.

Apparently, they want more money for the doctors, and that's certainly necessary in some cases.

Apparently, they say they want government out of health care. Does that mean end Medicare? Apparently, yes, because the Republicans have voted twice on this floor to end Medicare as we know it. You'll get a voucher. You will not have guaranteed coverage, and you will have to go out and shop for it yourself.

Apparently, they don't want community clinics because they've already voted on this floor to cut about one-third of the community clinics in this Nation.

Apparently, they talk about access, but at the same time they refuse to fund the residencies for family care, for the basic health care providers that we need in our hospitals and in our communities.

And apparently, they want to eliminate the Patient's Bill of Rights.

This is not a formula for America's health care.

Now, we also heard on this floor a few minutes ago, a half hour, 45 minutes ago, that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that because the Supreme Court eliminated the mandate that States have to provide more Medicaid coverage there would be fewer insured. True. That's true. Texas has refused to increase its Medicaid program. Well, that is Texas' decision, and I'm sure the Governor and legislature will have to address that.

But the fact here is that the Medicaid coverage actually provides the opportunity for some 17 million Americans to get insurance that do not now have insurance. If we provide the clinics, if we provide the residencies for the doctors who would be able to care for them, they will have access.

I can assure you that if we also do the preventative services, we will see a decline in the number of severe cases. People will not get so sick that they have to go to the emergency room. They'll get care early. And with the drugs that are necessary, they'll be able to avoid the very expensive illnesses. That's to all of our benefit. You mentioned vaccinations. These are all ways of reducing costs.

So here we are, once again, debating something that is now the law, that is proven, proven to provide services to Americans, whether they are seniors or whether they are young, whether they are children. It works, and it's working for America today.

Well, Mr. Tonko, thank you very much.

Next Monday, did you know, next Monday is the annual birthday of Medicare? Next Monday. It went into effect in 1965, and ever since, as you said earlier, Republicans have been trying to terminate it. They tried again this year, but the American public knows better. They know that they want to live long enough to get to Medicare because in Medicare they have a guaranteed benefit. They know that wherever you are in the United States, whether you are in Vermont or in California, you have the same quality policy that will cover most of what you need. If you want more, you can go out and buy that, that's called the Advantage program. And you get to choose your program.

It's not a government takeover at all. In fact, it is a financing mechanism so that every senior in America can choose their own provider. They get to choose their provider. They can go wherever they want to go to get their medical services. And if they don't like their doctor, they can change.

So the government is not saying where you can go. In fact, the government is financing the system so you can choose whatever provider you want to choose. It is a common policy across the Nation. It is efficient and it is effective, and the Republicans are trying to destroy it. We won't let that happen. Bottom line, we will not let that happen. And there are serious cost containments in the current Medicare program and in the Affordable Care Act.

I'm just going to end with this, and then we really need to get to what we wanted to talk about, which were the job programs.

The Congressional Budget Office today estimated that the Affordable Care Act, over the next 10 years, will reduce the deficit by $109 billion. In the 20 years going out, because of the cost containment in this system, the Affordable Care Act will reduce the deficit by over $1 trillion. Now, that's worth engaging. That's worth us doing. And simultaneously provide far better health care to Americans and far better access to health care wherever they may need it across this Nation. It's a good thing.

When they want to stand up here and say ObamaCare, I'm going, you're right, Obama cares--cares deeply about the very health of every single American. That's why the Affordable Care Act is in place today, was found to be constitutional, does reduce the deficit, and does provide quality health care and choice of where you want to get your medical care.

Exactly.

I was reading one of the Hill magazines--often called the Hill rags--and they said that the Speaker of this House starts off his weekly press conference by asking: Where are the jobs? Well, the jobs, Mr. Speaker, were proposed last September by President Obama--the American Jobs Act. Two million jobs minimum could have been created. This is one of the great woulda, coulda, shoulda's of our time. We could have had people back to work today, and in doing so reducing the deficit.

There are so many different pieces of this. Mr. Speaker, the American Jobs Act are where the jobs are. You talked about a piece of it. I'm going to just pick up one more. This is one that speaks to the American homes, what's going on in the house where we live. Many of those homes are run down, they have problems with insulation, or they don't have any insulation at all. They leak energy. Well, the President proposed, as a piece of the American Jobs Act, that we could provide construction jobs, really, low-skilled construction jobs, in rehabilitating the American homes. This is not a new concept. This has been going on for some time. It's been used repeatedly to upgrade homes in the United States and simultaneously save energy and save dollars for the American public. One piece of it, construction jobs, could have been put in place.

I'm going to pick up another one, and then I'm going to turn it back to you, Mr. Tonko. My daughter is a teacher, my son-in-law is a teacher. They've seen their class size just grow from 20, 22 to some 32 people in the class. Now, this is a serious problem for the teacher, making it more difficult to provide the quality teaching that's necessary. My daughter is a great teacher, my son-in-law is too, but it's much more difficult. The class size has increased by a third.

The American Jobs Act would have put 280,000 teachers back into the classroom. Now, if you happen to be a second-grader and you're not getting what you need to learn, then that's going to carry on through the remaining years of your schooling. And so 280,000 teachers could have been brought back into the classroom had the American Jobs Act passed.

Mr. Tonko.

Well, let me just pick up a little more on the education. The most important investment any society will ever make is the education of their children and the re-education of their workforce.

In the American Jobs Act there are the 280,000 teachers that would have been in the classroom this entire year. They're not there today because there's been no movement on this floor to even debate in committee, let alone take up a vote on this floor, the American Jobs Act.

Also, many of the schools across America are run down. Their laboratories, their classrooms are antiquated. They don't have air conditioning, many, many other problems. The American Jobs Act provided money for 35,000 schools across the United States to be upgraded, to be rehabilitated so that 250,000 jobs would have been created right there.

Before we go any further, I know you're all worried, oh, it's going to increase the deficit. The American Jobs Act would increase the deficit. No, it would not.

Mr. Tonko, you spoke earlier about when people go to work, the economy gets going, money is circulated, taxes are paid.

The other part of it is, the American Jobs Act was fully paid for by ending unnecessary tax subsidies to companies that don't need it, specifically the oil industry. The wealthiest industry in the world would lose its tax breaks that amount to over $16 billion, and that money would come back to pay for Americans going back to work.

There are other things. The top end tax, at the very top end, the wealthiest 2 percent would see their taxes go back to where they were during the Clinton period. This is how the American Jobs Act was going to be paid for.

Mr. Tonko.

Excuse me, 4.1 million jobs total.

Excuse me for interrupting, but if you look at the Ryan Republican budget, it would cut education and other services by 33 percent. So instead of investing in our children, investing in re- educating and helping our workforce learn new skills, they would cut it by 33 percent.

In transportation, the Ryan Republican budget would cut transportation funding by 25 percent, even when we know that our infrastructure gets a D because of potholes, because the bridges are failing. So why would you cut the transportation budget by 25 percent?

If you want to put Americans back to work, you don't do it that way.

And you did talk about Moody Analytics already. It doesn't work.

Now, I'm going to just pick up one more thing. I'm on the House Armed Services Committee, and we heard testimony last week from the CEO of Lockheed Martin, and the CEO of EADS, and also from two other witnesses. And they said this: you cut the budget for defense, and you're going to lay off 2 million people. That's part of the sequestration.

So here you have the top CEOs of America's big huge companies saying don't cut the budget because you are going to lay Americans off. You're going to lose up to 2 million jobs.

And yet for the last 2 years, our Republican friends have been trying to cut the budget. Not in defense, but in everything else, arguing that that will somehow create jobs.

However, testimony received last week from the CEOs of three large American corporations and one smaller corporation said categorically, If you cut the budget, we'll lay people off--creating unemployment.

The American Jobs Act puts people back to work, and it is fully paid for.

Mr. Tonko, you might actually have bathrooms that work. You might actually have a place where kids would want to be. You'll have a school that has a decent paint job, air conditioning. Kids would want to be in that school. Yet we have schools across this Nation where you wouldn't want to be and I wouldn't want to be, and I certainly wouldn't want my kids in that classroom.

Mr. Tonko, there is one additional piece to this puzzle, and that is that the Democrats have been putting forth for the last 2 years a project which we call Make It in America. This is the rebuilding of the American manufacturing sector. Twenty-five years ago, there were just under 20 million Americans employed in manufacturing. These were the middle class jobs. Now there are just over 11 million. We've seen the hollowing out--we've seen the outsourcing--of American manufacturing jobs.

There were actually policies in place before the Democrats in 2010 took control of this and ended tax breaks for American corporations that outsourced jobs. They actually were able to reduce their taxes by sending jobs overseas. We ended about $12 billion of those crazy, unnecessary, destructive tax breaks. Now the President has suggested that we put in place the remaining $4 billion. End those tax breaks, which is ending the rewarding of companies for outsourcing jobs. Turn it around and reward companies for in-sourcing, for bringing those jobs back home.

I have a piece of legislation that we've been working on, and it's actually getting some legs and moving along. It's part of Make It in America. Our tax dollars have been used in the past to buy foreign-made solar systems, wind turbines, trains, buses, light rail vehicles. My legislation says, if it's our tax money, then, by golly, it's going to be spent on American-made equipment, bringing our tax dollars home so that we buy American, so that we Make It in America once again. When we Make It in America, America will make it.

Mr. Tonko, I know that you are also into this with some pieces of legislation that you have, and maybe you'll want to talk about those. We can rebuild the American middle class by rebuilding America's manufacturing base. That's where you create wealth. Maybe it's in the food services. Maybe it's in the manufacturing of wine or in the manufacturing of food or automobiles or light rails or solar systems. We can do it, but we need to have in place smart government policies.

I beg my Republican colleagues to take a look at this. Don't just assume it's a Democratic idea. Make this an American idea, a Democrat and Republican idea, to change our policies so that we can rebuild the American middle class by making things in America once again.

Excuse me for interrupting.

Before you came to the House of Representatives, that was your work in New York, wasn't it?

Social Security.

If we're going to really be caring about the American worker going back to work, we also need to be very cognizant of international competition.

You spoke earlier about the need for our workforce to be competitive, which is the education process--K-12, vocational education, community colleges. They're exceedingly important. Also important is that there be fairness in the international trade situation, that we look not just for free trade but fair trade.

One of the things that we really must address is the threat of China's unfair trade practices. The Chinese currency is undervalued; and as a result of that, they have a 20 to 25 percent advantage.

You eliminate that, and the American worker will be competitive.

We have one of the pieces of legislation in the Make It In America package that the Democrats are putting forward which is forcing China to end its currency manipulation. When it ends its currency manipulation and allows the value of its currency to rise to appropriate parity, we will be able to be competitive. You can bet why the Chinese don't want to do it. They want that unfair trade advantage. That's one of the pieces of legislation that we put forward.

When the Democrats controlled Congress a year and a half ago, we pushed a bill out of here that would force sanctions on China if they continued their currency manipulation. Since the Republicans have taken control of the House of Representatives, that legislation has died, has never even come up for a vote on the floor. It ought to come up for a vote. We need fair trade practices.

We need to use our tax money to buy American-made equipment and supplies. We need to educate our workforces. These are investments in the American middle class. This is how we can restore the middle class of America. Health care is part of it also.

You talked earlier about health care and the availability of health care for working men and women. We also need to make sure that those jobs are there.

The American automobile industry is instructive on this count. It is instructive in that the U.S. Government and the leadership of President Obama actually allowed the American automotive industry to continue to even survive. Using the stimulus program, the President stepped forward and said, I will not allow the American automotive industry to die, and he put our tax money behind General Motors and Chrysler. Those companies are now thriving. And it's not just those companies. It is the thousands upon thousands of manufacturers across this Nation and others who supply all of the parts and all of the services. Think where we would be today if Congress had not given the President the power and if this President did not have the courage to take up saving the American automobile industry.

Presidential politics come here. Mr. Romney says he would not have done it. Okay. President Obama did it, and the American automobile industry is strong and vibrant today, and the American middle class is back to work.

Mr. Tonko, we must be about out of time.

Mr. Tonko, thank you very much for your passion on this issue, and thank you for your compassion for the American people. We can make it. We can make it in America. We need good and wise policies to do that. You can't do it by cutting, cutting, and cutting. You have to do it by investing, investing, investing.

The American public understands. They really do understand that we're a great Nation. There is no greater nation in the world. We need the kind of policies that will put Americans back to work and keep them healthy.

I want to thank those of you that are listening to this hour of discussion on health care and on jobs in America.

Mr. Tonko, thank you very much, and, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I have a question to the author of the amendment and to those who are supporting it on the other side.

In listening to your discussion, you seem to be in a posture of the military--Navy in this case, and I suppose other branches--having access to alternate fuels. You spoke specifically of coal-based fuels. Are you speaking of all kinds of alternative fuels and that the military should pursue those fuels so that they might be available to pursue them in their development phase as well as when they are fully developed?

I yield to the gentleman.

Reclaiming my time, sir, in listening to your discussion about the coal-based fuels, clearly those are in the development stage; they're not yet in place. I would assume that in the development stage, the U.S. military would be purchasing those for the purposes of testing as well as providing an early market, a development market, for those fuels. Therefore, I would assume that that same logic would apply to other kinds of biofuels, would it not?

I yield to the gentleman.

Well, reclaiming my time, and thank you, sir, for the information.

The point here is that in the early development of all of these fuels, whether they are coal-based or other kinds of biofuels, there is a higher cost in the early stages that presumably and hopefully and, in fact, must be reduced if the Navy is to procure those fuels for the normal utilization of their fleet, or whatever the fuel might be used for. Therefore, in listening to your discussion, which I do support, I think it's important to understand that in the early development there is going to be a higher cost which could not and should not carry forward for the normal use of those fuels.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, this amendment is offered by Mr. Jones and myself. The current Overseas Contingency Operation budget is based on the assumption that we will have 68,000 troops in Afghanistan throughout the entire fiscal year 2013. However, this is not the plan that our Commander in Chief has put forth, nor is it the plan that many of us who would like to see the war come to a quick end would support.

As President Obama has repeatedly stated, we are winding down this war. After withdrawing the surge troops by the end of this summer, that will bring us to 68,000 troops at the beginning of the 2013 fiscal year. We will continue to bring our troops home from Afghanistan, and I quote the President, ``at a steady pace.''

This amendment captures the billions of dollars that we will save by pursuing this steady drawdown of troops, as opposed to maintaining troop levels at 68,000 throughout the entire fiscal year 2013, and then presumably, on October 1, bring 28,000 troops home.

This amendment would cut $12.67 billion from the Overseas Contingency Fund.

Let me be clear about what this amendment does not do. It does not cut funding for troops on the ground in Afghanistan. I believe, as do all of my colleagues who have advocated for an accelerated end to this war, that our troops in harm's way should have all the resources they need to safely execute their mission. And I am committed to ensuring that our troops on the ground have the best equipment and the compensation that they deserve.

This amendment does cut the OCO funds that are unneeded and would not be used if we pursue the President's steady drawdown plan. In these fiscal times, stringent as they are, we should not be paying for things that we're not going to buy and that we don't need, and we certainly don't need to further pad the OCO budget.

The committee has already approved an extra $3.25 billion cushion on the OCO fund that was not even part of the President's request. We have already spent half a trillion dollars of taxpayer dollars on the war in Afghanistan, and the Department of Defense can't even account for many of those funds, lost due to contractor fraud or Afghan corruption.

When we take into account the long-term costs of this war, such as servicing our debt and caring for the wounded warriors, the costs are even more staggering.

Many of us support a quicker timeline of withdrawing troops from Afghanistan than the President has proposed. After a decade of war, we recognize that our core national security objectives have been met in Afghanistan and that there is no U.S. military solution to the remaining challenges in the Afghanistan nation.

We began our military operations in Afghanistan to eliminate those international terrorist organizations that threaten the United States. Thanks to the remarkable bravery and competency of our men and women in uniform, al Qaeda has been virtually eliminated from Afghanistan; terrorist training camps have been demolished; and Osama bin Laden is dead. Thousands have given their lives to accomplish this, and tens of thousands have suffered life-altering wounds. It is now time for our troops to come home.

It is also time for this House not to waste further money. This amendment is not about ending the war. It is about reducing the deficit by $12.67 billion. We can do that by capturing the billions of dollars saved by the President's proposed troop drawdown and by redirecting those funds towards reducing the deficit and by bolstering our fiscal security here at home.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman.

My apologies to Mr. Jones who was about to stand up and speak on this issue.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your sincerity and your extraordinary work on the issue--a very, very difficult issue. I share with you the obvious compassion that you have for our troops--those who are there and those who have been wounded. However, if I might pose a question:

The Commander in Chief, who presumably had the advice of the generals on the ground and in the Pentagon, has stated clearly that at the beginning of the next fiscal year, which would be October 1 of this year, there would be 68,000 troops on the ground in Afghanistan and that there would be a steady drawdown, or a steady pace, so that at the end of the fiscal year there would be some 40,000 troops, which would be September 30, 2013. Now, a steady drawdown would assume that you would take 28,000 troops, and you would remove them on a steady basis so that, over the course of that year, you would have half the troops in the country and the other half would be gone. That being the case, you don't need to budget for all 68,000 being there the entire year. In fact, you budget for something between 40,000 and 68,000. However, the appropriation that we have before us actually assumes that all 68,000 are going to be there until October 1 of 2013. That's not what the President has said. That's apparently not what the generals are planning and what the planning and execution is.

So what this amendment simply does is to recognize what it is that the generals intend to do as commanded by the Commander in Chief. Now, we may disagree with that, but the advice just given to me by the chairman is that we ought to pay attention to the generals, who are apparently saying a steady drawdown. There is $12.5 billion at stake here, and what we are trying to do is to capture that. Now, at least there would be concern that something would go awry and that the drawdown wouldn't occur. The appropriation actually places a $3.2 billion cushion for unexpected contingencies.

So what are we doing here? Do we care about the deficit or not? My amendment simply speaks to: let's be wise with the taxpayers' money. Let's not appropriate money that should not or is not apparently going to be necessary, and if there is a contingency, there is a $3 billion cushion built into this budget and into this appropriation already.

I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Mulvaney).

Reclaiming my time, I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I move to strike the last word.

Madam Chair, after more than a decade of war, it is time to accelerate our drawdown of troops in Afghanistan and bring this war to a close.

We've sent our brave servicemen and -women to Afghanistan to eliminate the international terrorists who would do us harm. They have successfully executed this mission with phenomenal dedication and capacity: they have driven al Qaeda from Afghanistan, destroyed their training facilities, killed or captured most of their top leaders. Under President Obama's decisive leadership and thanks to the courage and competency of our special forces, the 9/11 mastermind--Osama bin Laden--has met his just end.

The President has outlined a plan for winding down this war, and I support drawing down our military presence in Afghanistan even more quickly than the President has suggested. We should welcome our troops back as heroes and ensure they receive the support and care that is due when they return.

Our military servicemembers and their families have borne and continue to bear far more than their share of the burden of this war. I am a member of the House Armed Services Committee, and I represent the 10th District of California, which is home to Travis Air Force Base-- the largest Air Mobility Command unit in the Air Force. Nearby in Marysville, California, is Beale Air Force Base, which is the leader in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Together, 16,000 servicemembers across the active duty National Guard and Reserves, as well as over 75,000 veterans, live in my district and in the surrounding area. These are the people who are disproportionately bearing the cost of this war.

As their Representative, I owe it to them to make sure that we do not ask of them any more than is absolutely necessary in order to ensure America's national security. But the majority here in this House is determined to prevent even a serious debate about ending the war in Afghanistan. They have inserted language into the National Defense Authorization Act that would actually slow down the withdrawal of U.S. forces and keep nearly 70,000 troops in Afghanistan until at least 2015.

When the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee tried to offer an amendment to replace this provision, the majority said it was out of order. When a bipartisan group of Members of Congress joined together on an amendment replacing this provision, the majority blocked that amendment. This is the longest war in America's history, claiming thousands of lives and costing hundreds of billions of dollars, and the majority simply doesn't want to talk about it.

We must talk about this war. We must take time to think deeply about the sacrifices of those who are serving and who have served. To date, 1,875 of our military servicemembers have been killed in Afghanistan, leaving thousands more to endure the unimaginable grief of the loss of a loved one. 15,322 of our troops have been wounded seriously, suffering life-altering injuries. Not included in that number are those with psychological wounds--invisible but no less devastating. We have spent a half a trillion taxpayer dollars on the war in Afghanistan, and this legislation would allocate $88 billion more to be spent in this year alone.

There are some who would continue this war indefinitely. They oppose the fixed timeline for ending combat operations and for bringing our troops home. They oppose any concrete plans for transitioning full responsibility for Afghanistan's security as quickly as possible. Even worse, they would have American troops continuing to fight against a domestic insurgency in Afghanistan, and they think it's America's job to defeat those armed factions that threaten the Karzai Government, which is, perhaps, the most corrupt government in this world. In fact, they have inserted language into this bill that says the U.S. objective in Afghanistan is to defend the Karzai Government against the Taliban. They also have an interest in American troops defeating the Haqqani Network and any other faction that is taking on the Karzai Government, involving us in a multisided civil war.

It was never the American mission in Afghanistan, nor should it be. As President Obama clearly said last week, ``Our goal is to destroy Al Qaeda.'' We began a military operation in Afghanistan with a very clear reason. It's time for us to end this war and bring our troops home.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, before we start on our dialogue--I expect to have my colleague from New York here in a few minutes--I want to thank my colleague from North Carolina, Walter Jones.

Mr. Jones, every day and every week you speak on this floor about the Afghanistan war and previously about the Iraq war, and you carry a message that is extremely important, one that I agree with, and one that I would hope that our colleagues here in Congress would take up this issue in a very strong and determined way to bring this Afghanistan war to an end.

I thank the President for bringing the Iraq war to an end. And now there's yet another task for all of us to do, and that is to end this continued use and abuse of the American soldiers. They endure much, and it's time for us to bring them home.

We thank them for their service. We see them as they return.

Some of my colleagues and I are working on a major effort to try to deal with more than 365,000 of those men and women that have returned that are suffering from posttraumatic stress syndrome, dealing with everything from suicides to depression and other issues as they return home, and many of them still in the military dealing with those issues.

We also have the traumatic brain issues, and so there's much to be done. And there will be much more to be done for those that are currently suffering. And the longer this war in Afghanistan continues, the more men and women will be suffering from all sorts of medical, physical, and mental issues.

So, Walter, thank you so very much for what you're doing here on the floor day in and day out and reminding us that it's time for us to end this war.

What I want to spend some time on today is really talking about America's middle class. The middle class in America has suffered. For the last 25 years, the American middle class's circumstances have stagnated, and in the last 5 years--actually, 6 years--have seriously declined. We've seen this in the statistics. We've seen them in the economic statistics.

The only way the American middle class has been able to sustain its economic position has been for both husband and wife or children to join in providing the income for the family. It's no longer a single- person income sustaining the American middle class.

It is about our policies here on the floor of Congress and the Senate that has led to the decline of the American middle class. Specific policies have been enacted over the last two decades that have hollowed out the opportunities that the American middle class has counted on, specifically, manufacturing in America.

Once, 20 million Americans and their families were in the manufacturing sector. They enjoyed a good salary. A good hourly wage was available to them such that one individual in that family working in the manufacturing sector was able to support the family, own a home, take a vacation, buy a boat, provide for the college education. That is not the case today. Only 11 million and a few thousand beyond that are actually engaged in manufacturing in America today.

So what happened to the 9 million? They lost their jobs. Those jobs disappeared, not from the Earth, but disappeared from America. They went overseas. They were outsourced. American jobs were outsourced.

Why? Well, they'd like to say it's simply the nature of the free market

system, and, indeed, that's part of it. But that's not all of it. A major part of it had to do with specific tax policies and other manufacturing industrial policies that were enacted by Congress and remained on the books for some 20 years or more.

We need to address that issue because, if, in fact, it is the policies of this Congress and previous Congresses that have led to the great outsourcing and decline of the American manufacturing sector and, along with it, the American middle class, then there's something that we can do about it.

We make laws. We establish policies. And if we find that there are policies that are contrary to the good ability of the American economy to prosper and the middle class to prosper along with it, then we ought to change those policies. That's what the Make It In America agenda is all about.

The Make It In America agenda is specifically designed to rebuild the American manufacturing sector. This is an issue that's been taken up by the Democratic Caucus, led by our Minority Whip, Mr. Hoyer, and carried on by my colleagues and I. So we're going to talk a little bit about that.

I notice that my colleague from New York (Mr. Tonko) has joined us. Mr. Tonko, we were going to start out on health care, but we kind of morphed into the issue of the American manufacturing industry and the role of the middle class.

Now, the middle class, I went off on manufacturing and the need to rebuild that and the Make It In America agenda, but also, a key part of the inability of the American middle class to sustain itself is health care. And the Affordable Health Care Act, which the Supreme Court recently confirmed was constitutional, is constitutional, is a major effort on the part of the Democratic Congress and President Obama to provide not only health care, but to lift up the American middle class.

So let's hold, for a moment, the issue of Make It In America. We'll come back to it in the latter half of this hour. But let's take up the health care agenda, which I know you wanted to speak to initially.

While you're doing that, I'm going to run and get a couple of placards that show what it is we're talking about. Please, Mr. Tonko, from the great State of New York, part of the East-West team.

Mr. Tonko, I am really pleased that you brought that up. You have reminded me of a rather lengthy article from The Sacramento Bee. I am from California. Sacramento has one of the hometown papers, and the Bee was writing a major article on the exchange.

In the Affordable Care Act, there is an insurance exchange, and California was the first State in the Nation to follow up on the Affordable Care Act's exchange portion and to put in place a law to build an exchange. Now, at least our Republican friends think that's an awful situation. Governor Schwarzenegger, who was a Republican and is a Republican, signed that legislation before he left office almost 2 years ago now.

So this article is very effusive and upbeat about the establishment of an exchange in that they expect to have it online. What they talked about, a lot of it, was of individuals who could get insurance in a large pool and have the same opportunities for reasonably priced policies as occurs in a big business.

They also spent a lot of time talking about small businesses. How correct you are that the Affordable Care Act really offers small businesses an extremely important and heretofore unavailable opportunity to get insurance for the employer as well as for the employees, and a very big subsidy is available for those small companies that choose to buy insurance. Up to 50 percent of the cost of the insurance could be subsidized and costs reduced to the employer. Now, that's a lot of money. It's calculated at about $4,000 per employee if you're looking at an $8,000 or $9,000 policy. So it's really an important opportunity. Why is that good for business?

Go ahead, Mr. Tonko.

Exactly.

Absolutely true.

In addition to that, because of the exchange situation, individuals as well as

businesses find themselves in a large pool.

Now, I was the insurance commissioner in California for 8 years in the nineties and then again in 2000 with an 8-year hiatus in between. I understand that, in insurance, for it to work, you need a very large, diverse population so that the risk is spread. In the individual market today, you can't get that; but in the exchange, the concept is to allow all of these individuals and these small businesses to be part of a very, very large pool so that they can take advantage of the spreading of the risk and, therefore, the lower cost and the subsidy on top of that.

One more thing. I was at a bagel shop. It was in the early morning, and I needed a cup of coffee and a bagel, so I stopped at a bagel shop. There was the owner and one or two employees--I think there were actually three. One was in the back. I didn't see that employee. We were talking about health insurance, and there was an excitement by this employer because she could get insurance. So it's the employer as well as the two employees who were going to be able to get insurance. Previously, she couldn't. She was a single mother with a new shop, opening it up--pretty good bagels and the coffee was very good. Now she can get insurance through the exchange. It was a new shop, and income was going to be low, so she could also get the subsidy. For the first time in many, many years for this woman--a divorcee whose husband went one way and she went the other, who lost the insurance--she can get insurance.

This is part of the Affordable Care Act, and it is specifically designed in a way to encourage businesses to provide insurance and, in that process, as you say, to find the good employees and keep them. It's very exciting.

Let me take that a little further.

I wish I'd had this law when I was insurance commissioner because I used to see this all the time when I'd get complaints. We had a consumer hotline, and we would take several thousand calls a week. We'd always get these complaints about: They dropped my insurance.

And we get from businesses, They dropped my insurance. Why did they drop the insurance? You said it right on target. Suddenly one of the members of the workforce of a small group of people had a significant illness. When it came time for the annual renewal--insurance is an annual thing that is renewed every year--they heard back, I'm sorry. We can't renew you this year because we're changing the market. All kinds of excuses. But the reality was there was one sick person in that group. This law will end that.

There's also the opportunity for people that have become unemployed in this economy to get a job, particularly if that person happens to be 50 years or older. That person today has a preexisting condition called ``age.'' They're beginning to enter that part of life where you're going to have more medical issues, and employers go, Wait a minute. We don't have a position for you. We're not discriminating based on age, but your resume isn't exactly the way it ought to be. It's very difficult for a person 50 and older to get back into the workforce because of health insurance.

With the exchange and the anti-discrimination policies in the Affordable Care Act, which we call the Patients' Bill of Rights, they will be able to get back into the workforce. We're talking about people going back to work with health insurance no longer being a barrier to employment.

These are all part of the puzzle of putting people back to work. As I started this discussion, talking about the laws of America, the policies that have been enacted by this Congress and by previous Congresses and the way in which they impact the middle class of America, that impact has been devastating on the middle class for the last 20 years. It is our determination as Democrats to change the policies so that the American middle class can once again thrive, so that a family can enjoy the fruits of their labor, and so that they can enjoy the potential that America brings to them.

I notice that we've been joined by our colleague from Pennsylvania. Please, join us. Thank you for coming in this evening and sharing with us your thoughts.

Thank you very much for joining us, and thank you for bringing that perspective.

Twice, now, our Republican colleagues have voted for a full repeal of the law, and you very correctly and, I think, almost totally pointed out the things that would disappear. The doughnut hole would open up again, the preexisting conditions, the patients' bill of rights would be gone, and the insurance companies can then re-engage in discrimination, as they have so often. All those things that are very positive would disappear. So we're fighting fiercely to keep them. As Mr. Tonko, our colleague from New York has said, We will work through the years ahead to improve and to deal with the unknown issues that are certain to arise.

We've got work ahead of us, and we can do it.

Well, we heard many, many things during that debate last week that are just, I think, incorrect and inaccurate.

One of them was that the Medicare program was cut and benefits taken away from seniors. It didn't happen. What happened was that about $50 billion a year of expenditures going to the insurance industry unnecessarily, an unnecessary bonus was removed, that was about $160 billion, about $16 billion a year; and then there was the Medicare fraud. That is a big problem and other adjustments, but no reduction in benefits to seniors and, in fact, significant increases.

Mr. Altmire talked about those with the drug benefit, as you did. There was also the prescription drug savings, which, Mr. Altmire, you raised. We also know that every senior now has a free annual health checkup, which is an exceedingly important way of keeping seniors, well, anybody, healthy. You get a checkup--we got blood pressure issues, diabetes issues, other kinds of medical issues--you get ahead of them, and then with the drugs you can keep ahead of them. There are many, many improvements in the Medicare program that are as a result of the bill.

Mr. Altmire, I know that you have been spending a lot of time on these issues, and I thank you for your participation here tonight. If you would like to expand on maybe some experiences in your own district, go for it.

Excuse me just for a moment. I noticed in our gallery two gentlemen, soldiers, who are here, both of them wounded in the wars. This is part of a group that comes in here every day when we're in session to watch what we're doing. They just stepped out the door, and I wanted to catch them before they left to recognize them for the services that they provide. They may come back in, in which case I will interrupt you again.

Well, they are coming back, and I just want to, maybe the three of us can simply recognize them for the service that they provided to this country. I suspect that, normally, I see a gentleman that's always escorting them here in the gallery. Normally, they come back with some wound or another, and that's difficult; but I want them to know, and I would ask you to join me in this conversation, to know that this House, Democrat and Republican alike, are determined to make sure that all of our men and women that are returning from the wars, and those that have served even though they were not on the field of battle, deserve both our respect and whatever services they need, veterans services, medical services, and a job.

I thank them for coming here.

Mr. Tonko.

Well, this is the only thing that's actually been done. When the President last September proposed the American Jobs Act, the second thing that he talked about was the veterans jobs bill, and it kind of languished around here for a couple of months. It was early September when the President spoke.

Then came this special day every year called Veterans Day, and all 435 of us, we would go home, and we would go to the veterans parades and, lo and behold, we came back and we found compromise, and we found bipartisanship and the veterans jobs bill actually became law shortly thereafter.

Mr. Tonko, before we carry further with the American Jobs Act, I know that the two veterans who were here in the gallery were headed out the door when I recognized them, I saw them leave and I wanted to thank them for their service. I suspect that they were headed off to some other meeting, or wherever they were headed; and I don't want to keep them here, but rather just to thank them for their service and to know that 435 Members of this House care deeply about your situation, what you're dealing with, and all of the others that are in the field and have returned, in providing the extraordinary service to this Nation.

Thank you very much, gentlemen.

Exactly.

Now the American Jobs Act had many, many pieces to it; and this is one of the great what-ifs, you know, one of the woulda, coulda, shouldas. What if back in September this House had actually taken up the elements of the American Jobs Act. There was, I think, almost 250,000 teaching jobs that were in this piece of legislation. There was also almost the same number of police and firemen and public safety officers in the legislation.

It didn't happen and so I know that in my daughter and son-in-law's own school district there have been layoffs because of the economic and financial circumstances of the State of California, and the class size went from 22-23 to 33-34, an extraordinary burden on the kids.

When you're in the second or third grade, you never get a chance to go back and repeat. That's a lost year, and that will carry through perhaps all the rest of your life, that you missed that opportunity to really advance your education.

Just on the educational side, you go, whoa, what if we had another 280,000 teachers in the classroom across America today? How would that advance the well-being of our children? I think it's very clear they'd be far better off, far better off. But it didn't happen.

So the President also talked about building the foundation for tomorrow's economic growth. This is the infrastructure of the Nation--a big word, but one that I think most Americans understand as being the roads, the bridges, the railroads, the sanitation systems, the water systems, the research, the schools. We delayed--I guess all of us, in some respect, but really the Republicans in this House controlled this--the transportation bill. We delayed the implementation of the reauthorization of the transportation bill until the middle of the construction season. Just 2 weeks ago, we actually passed a 2-year transportation authorization program--very, very important and very beneficial. But what if that had happened last September? We lost half of a construction season and States and localities were unable to plan and put in place the projects that they needed to put in place because of the dilly-dallying and the delay that went on here.

We'll take some of the blame on our side, but we don't control the legislation. It's controlled by our Republicans here. Ultimately, they were unable to even put a bill out. The Senate did put a bill out; and I thank Senator Boxer from California, the lead author on that, and the minority leader, and in her committee the two of them came together with a bipartisan bill. It finally got done. We're thankful for it.

But the President wanted to go beyond that. He wanted to establish an infrastructure bank, one where we could literally invest some public money, some private money, and go about building projects that have a cash flow, like a toll road or a sanitation plant or a water system where people pay a fee and there's a cash flow so that we can really build the infrastructure of this Nation. But it didn't happen.

This was the Governor from New York, not from Arkansas.

Well, you just talked about history here. Actually, your Governor, DeWitt Clinton, really did lead a major infrastructure project. Now, California was the Gold Rush. It's very interesting to go back through the old writings; and the folks from the East, New York and around, traveled up the Erie Canal to the Great Lakes to Chicago and then from there on. And they also left--and these are my relatives--the port of New York, which was built as part of the infrastructure, to travel to the Panama and then across the Isthmus of Panama and then up the coast of California. So my own relatives took advantage of those two infrastructure projects that you talked about.

However, your Governor was building off some of the work of the Founding Fathers. There's a lot of talk around here that there's no role for government in the economy. Well, George Washington disagreed. And his Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, disagreed. And they had a debate with Jefferson, who thought that we ought to be an agrarian State; and George Washington and Hamilton thought there was a role for industrial and for manufacturing. And so George Washington in his very first days as President told Alexander Hamilton to put together an industrial policy for America. And there were about, I think, nine points or maybe 12 points in that industrial policy. One of them was: build the infrastructure. It specifically said canals and harbors.

So this goes back to the very beginning of our country. What the President wanted to do and what we Democrats want to do is to build the infrastructure, the foundation upon which the economy grows. And we can do it. We can pay for it because every dollar we invest in the infrastructure immediately turns around and develops $1.75 of growth in the economy. So it's not money down a rat hole. It is money that builds the foundation and then expands the economy immediately. It is the very best way to put people back to work immediately, together with education.

I want to just pick this up. I do want to come back to our manufacturing policies before we wrap up here. But before we do, just to pull together the American Jobs Act that the President proposed back in September, A, folks, it did not increase the deficit.

The program was paid for, paid for by changes in the tax policy of the United States, policies that the President continues to talk about today that we eliminate the tax benefits that go unnecessarily to the oil company, the oil industry. Some $5 billion to $15 billion a year of subsidy is going to the wealthiest industry in the world. Pull those back. And the extraordinarily low taxes that have been available to the super rich, the top 1 percent, restore those to the Clinton era tax and other tax proposals that he had made so that the proposal was fully paid for--not decreasing the deficit but rather putting people back to work and creating the jobs that are necessary to move the economy and to get the American middle class back into the game so that they can prosper and so that we can rebuild those American manufacturing jobs, the 9 million jobs in manufacturing that were lost between 1990 and 2010.

Keep in mind that over the last 29 months, there has been private sector job growth every one of those 29 months. And so when people say, no, no, it's not good; say, it's not good enough, but at least it is happening. Men and women are going back to work in the private sector. The public sector continues to lose jobs and continues to shed jobs. But on the private sector job side, in part because of the policies we've been talking about here and the inherent strength of the American entrepreneurial and business spirit, people are coming back, not as strong as we want, but if the American Jobs Act were in place in its fullness, we would be moving towards a more balanced budget, reducing the deficit, and putting people back to work. We're not there yet, but we've not given up on this. And one of the major pieces in this is what we call Make it in America, because manufacturing matters.

I know in your district you've been talking a lot about this Mohawk Valley and about this great history. I'm not going to let you continue on without saying, hey, I'm from California. And we know entrepreneurship, and we know about the next generation of jobs and the next innovation. But New York still is there, and we'll vie with you for the best in the Nation.

Let me pick up one of the issues the President has been talking about recently, and we actually worked on this more than a year and a half, almost 2 years ago, and that was the tax policy. At the outset, I talked about policies, tax policies being one of them. American tax policies until December of 2010 actually allowed and gave to American corporations a tax reduction, a tax break when they offshore jobs. Send a job oversees and reduce your taxes. Hello? How could that be?

I don't know where it came from, but that was the law of the land until the Democrats, then in control of Congress, pushed through a piece of legislation that ended $12 billion a year of tax breaks for corporations that offshored, sent jobs oversees.

I will just note parenthetically that not one Republican voted to end that extraordinarily damaging tax proposal that rewarded companies with lower taxes when they offshored jobs. Not one Republican voted to repeal that law. However, the Democrats stood together, the President signed that, and it is now the law. There is still about another 4, 5, maybe $6 billion of tax breaks that companies get when they offshore jobs. We've been working to eliminate those, and the President talks about it very often. He also talks about something that we should do, and that is to reward the onshoring of jobs.

When companies bring the jobs back home, they should receive a tax break. When you want to send jobs offshore, you should receive a penalty and certainly ought not receive a tax reduction. Now, that's good public policy. It hasn't happened. We don't control the House of Representatives, and all tax bills have to start in the House of Representatives. So we keep pleading with our Republican colleagues, please, please, give American corporations a tax break when they onshore jobs, and end the remaining tax breaks for offshoring jobs.

You talk about reward and about tax policy, as was I. And let me give you another one, and I know that you and I are working on this together: tax policy. Right now we provide, we Americans provide a tax credit, a tax reduction, for those who put up solar programs or wind turbines. The thing is, that's our tax money. The question is, where is it being spent? Is it being spent on American- made equipment, or is it being spent on foreign made equipment? All too often, those tax subsidies are used to purchase foreign equipment.

This piece of legislation which I'm working on together with Mr. Tonko, H.R. 613, basically says that if you're using our tax money, for example, the Highway Trust Fund tax money, for buses, trains, or building roads, then you must spend that money on American-made equipment. Similarly, with solar and wind, if you're going to get a tax credit, if you're going to use American taxpayers' money to build something, then it's going to be made in America. We're going to return the American manufacturing by using our tax money on American-made goods and services.

Mr. Tonko, we're nearing the end of our time. Why don't you take a run at wrapping? I get the last 30 seconds. You take the next 90 seconds.

Well, Mr. Tonko, thank you for joining us this evening. I thank our two gentlemen from the armed services who were here earlier. And, yes, our best days do lie ahead. It's about public policies, it's about the entrepreneurial spirit, and it's about America's desire to be the best. We're going to make it in America. We're going to make it in America because we will, once again, make things in America. We will rebuild the American middle class.

It's about policy, it's about the spirit of America. It can be done and it will be done, and we're here to see that it does get done.

Mr. Tonko, thank you for this evening.

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

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Tonko, thank you so very much. And thank you for beginning this discussion by going back into the history of the United States back to the development of Social Security and the extraordinary benefit that that has brought to not only seniors but to their children, to families, knowing that when retirement age approached-- 65--there would be a foundation for whatever retirement program a person would have, and also for pointing out that for years now, and certainly in the recent decade, our Republican colleagues have called for the privatization of Social Security.

Now if you trust Wall Street, then I guess it's a good idea. If we had any lesson, we should have had the lesson of 2008 and 2009, when Wall Street turned its back on the American public and simply ripped us off to a fare-thee-well and nearly collapsed the world economy. Were it not for the efforts of the Obama administration and, frankly, this Congress, it may very well have happened.

And then you pointed out Medicare coming along in 1964, 1965 and the way in which that has protected seniors. I remember as a young child--I think I was probably 7 or 8--my dad took me down to the county hospital to visit one of our neighbor ranchers. I've got to tell you it was horrible. That was the only care available for a senior who had no money. And then Medicare came along, and 60 percent of America's seniors were in poverty prior to Medicare. Now, with Social Security and Medicare, it's somewhere around 10, 15 percent. An enormous boost. Yet twice this House has voted to terminate Medicare. Not the Democrats. Our Republican colleagues twice have voted to terminate Medicare so that every American less than 55 years of age would not receive Medicare. They would be given a voucher and told to go fight as best they could in the private insurance market.

And then today, another major effort by the Democrats to provide health care for all Americans--a health insurance policy that you knew was there, that you could count on, that would be affordable. The 31st time, today, a full repeal or a partial repeal was taken up and passed by our Republican colleagues.

So what's an American to do? What does it mean to Americans? Let's spend some time talking about what this means to Americans if you didn't have Medicare. If you don't have the Affordable Care Act, what would it mean?

I'm going to start, if I might, or would you like to start?

Let me just take up the Patient's Bill of Rights very, very quickly. I was the insurance commissioner in California for 8 years. The insurance industry puts people behind profits. Profits before people. And they're concerned about making sure that they have a healthy group of customers. They don't want sick people. Sick people cost money. So over the years they have developed a whole set of discriminatory practices to exclude from coverage people they don't want to take care of because they might be expensive.

So in the Affordable Care Act there is the Patient's Bill of Rights that forces the insurance companies to end insurance discrimination. And here's just some of them:

Children with preexisting conditions. An example, my chief of staff, his son was covered by insurance the day he was born. The second day of his life they discovered that kid had very serious renal failure; kidney failure. Bam, the insurance was over. That family was off their insurance policy; gone, done. No longer. We're talking about I think 14 million American children that are going to get coverage regardless of what their health circumstances might be.

Young adults. This one is close to home. I've got six children. Every one of them have passed through that age of 21 when they were no longer on our insurance policy. Most recently, my daughter. Twenty-one years of age, covered by an insurance company for 21 years and 9 months. The day of her 21st birthday, off the insurance policy. We're now talking about every young American 21 to 26 stays on their parents' health policy.

She also happens to be a woman. Women are discriminated against in insurance because they have a preexisting condition: They could get pregnant. That's expensive. We don't want to cover them, say the insurance companies. No, no. Under the Patient's Bill of Rights, the discrimination against every woman in America on their insurance policy is over. Apparently, our Republican colleagues don't care about these very, very important efforts to end insurance discrimination.

We can go on here. Seniors. Who among us doesn't have a preexisting condition? High blood pressure, juvenile diabetics, type II diabetes. Try to get insurance without the Affordable Care Act--you're out of luck. You won't get insurance.

So the Patient's Bill of Rights, should today's action become law, is repealed, and along with it, the protections that 315 million Americans presently have--presently have. No more insurance discrimination. The ability to get insurance is guaranteed. No more discrimination.

Yes, I'm a little passionate about this one because I've watched this. I've watched this as insurance commissioner. I fought the insurance companies day in and day out as they denied coverage, as they refused to provide the coverage, as they told people they couldn't get care. But the law is in place now. The law is in place, and it's going to stay in place despite the vote today.

Mr. Tonko, thank you.

Our colleague, Marcy Kaptur, reminded me of a personal story, personal things.

My sister-in-law was a juvenile diabetic, and I think of what would her circumstances be if she had had this law when she was alive. The last 20 years of her life were a struggle. The company she worked for folded, and her health insurance was lost. And she spent the last 20 years of her life struggling financially, medically, and really unable to get the kind of continuity of care necessary. She got a lot of help from her family; but even so, it was a struggle.

Under the law today, she would have been able to get insurance. And in 2014, in California, or actually next year in California, there will be an exchange. So even though she spent those last 20 years as an independent contractor, selling various things over those years, she could enter into a large pool, that is the exchange, where she would have the same opportunity to buy a low-cost policy as though she were in Ford Motor Company with hundreds of thousands of employees.

Our Republican colleagues would abolish the exchanges. And I just think about what could have been. There was no exchange, and she wasn't able to get that insurance; but had she lived, and had other men and women with diabetes or serious heart issues or other kinds of problems, medical problems, they could get insurance in the exchange and be part of a large pool.

Simultaneously, if they didn't have the income, they would be able to get a subsidy. If their income was less than the poverty level, that insurance would be free through the Medicaid program. And if they were above the poverty level, it would be subsidized so that it would be affordable.

I guess this is really about compassion. This is about our very moral sense of who we are as Americans, do we have compassion, and do we care for our fellow citizens.

On today's floor I heard the most astounding arguments, arguments based upon falsehoods, just flat out falsehoods. I heard the Speaker here say that the Affordable Care Act cost employment. But since the Affordable Care Act has been in place for the last 2 years, private sector employment has grown every single month.

Now, there may have been some company that decided not to employ somebody, or maybe they went out of business for any number of reasons. But private sector employment has grown every single month for the last 28 months. So, taken as a whole, the Affordable Health Care Act didn't retard employment. It didn't cause the number of private sector employees to decline. In fact, they've grown.

And I also heard the very same person, with the very same argument, say that it's driven up health care costs. Well, excuse me, take a look at the statistics, the health care statistics. We've actually seen, in the last 2 years, since the Affordable Health Care Act went into effect, a significant decline in the rate of inflation for health care. In fact, the rate of inflation for health care in the last 2 years, 2010 and 2011, was the lowest rate of growth in every year except one in the last 50 years. It was 3.9 percent.

Those are not my statistics. They're not pulled out of the air. Those are government statistics about health care inflation--3.9 percent, which was the lowest rate of inflation in general health care in the last 50 years, except only one other year.

How about the cost of premiums?

Before I get there, the average health care spending in 2000 to 2009 was 6.8

percent per year. That's the annual growth, 6.8 percent per year. In 2010 and 2011, as I just said, it was 3.9 percent, nearly 50 percent less.

Let's get our facts right. Put aside the rhetoric and deal with the facts. If you're going to come down here, as Speaker or anybody else, use facts in your argument. Don't just throw out a number.

Mr. Speaker, if you'd like to debate it on the floor with me, come on down.

Seniors paying more? No, I don't believe so. No, they don't pay more. Medicare Advantage enrollees, the cost of premiums for Medicare Advantage was 16 percent less in 2012 than in 2010. The Affordable Health Care Act, was it responsible for that? Partly, yes, because the Affordable Health Care Act took $150 billion, $15 billion a year, away from the insurance companies and plowed it back into Medicare benefits.

The drug benefit that you were talking about--free medical services, preventative services.

The result was a 16 percent reduction--an overall average--across the United States for Medicare Advantage. Oh, by the way, these are statistics from Mercer, one of the health care consulting companies. I think I'll let it go at that. There are more statistics about that.

Mr. Speaker and my colleagues on the Republican side, if you want to come down and debate the issue of health care inflation, then you'd better come down here with real facts. Don't come down here with a lot of just talk. Health care inflation has gone down since the Affordable Care Act has been put in place.

Mr. Tonko, why don't you pick it up from here. Maybe I'll have a challenge on the floor from the Speaker. We'll see.

You are absolutely correct. We really need to get to jobs.

I notice some of our Republican colleagues are here. They'll be taking the next hour, and I suspect they are going to pick up something that was said over and over again over the last 2 days. I just want to put on the table some facts, some facts about what is really going on here.

I heard speakers come to the floor, including the Speaker of the House, saying the Affordable Care Act was the largest middle class tax increase ever. Well, I'm sorry. The Washington Post Fact Checker said the health care law will provide more tax relief than tax burden for middle class families. A report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office shows that an estimated 4 million individuals will likely pay the penalty because they're not going to buy insurance. Okay? That's about 1.2 percent of the total population.

They also estimated that 16 million Americans--that's four times more--will receive tax credits, or subsidies, to help them pay for insurance coverage through the new exchanges. Now, that's 5 percent of the population. The CBO estimates that the government will provide $630 billion in tax credits and subsidies for insurance over the next 11 years and only $54 billion in penalties--taxes or tax increases--on the middle class.

So the fact of the matter is the middle class is going to get an enormous tax benefit as a result of this. Those who buy insurance are actually going to see their taxes reduced as they buy insurance. They'll have health care coverage at an affordable cost, their taxes will go down, they'll receive subsidies. The essential point here is that

it is not a tax increase, the overwhelming, largest-ever on the middle class. In fact, it is a huge tax reduction.

Secondarily, there is a decreased cost to every American who buys health insurance today because there will not be a shift of cost from the uninsured to the insured and to the taxpayer. That's precisely what happens when you have some 40 million Americans uninsured. They get sick. Fortunately, in this Nation, we have not yet come to the point when we do not provide health care to people who are sick and in need of care. They get it at the emergency room, and they get it at the community clinics.

It becomes what is known as uncompensated care. In other words, it is not paid for directly by the individual, but indirectly by every single American that buys a health insurance policy and every company that buys a health insurance policy and the American taxpayers.

The Affordable Health Care Act does not increase the cost of health care in America. In fact, it has the significant potential of decreasing the cost. In the last 2 years, we've seen the health care costs in America decline to the lowest inflation rate ever in the last 50 years except 1 year.

Let's get the facts correct, my colleagues. If we're going to talk about tax increases, get the facts correct. Talk about the tax reductions at the same time. Talk about the fact that the Affordable Health Care Act, in effect, has actually been part of an overall reduction in the inflation rate of health care.

And in the Affordable Health Care Act, there are very significant, long-lasting, and powerful reforms that will bend the cost curve of health care, such as electronic medical records. The repeal would wipe that out. It would be gone.

Primary care clinics across this Nation are funded through the Affordable Health Care Act. Where do you think people get care today? In those clinics. If they don't get care there, they're going to the emergency room at 5 or 10 times the cost.

There are vaccinations for our children, which, incidentally, in the appropriations bill, our Republican friends tried to eliminate many of these vaccinations. Fortunately, it didn't happen.

There is preventive care for seniors so that their blood pressure and diabetes is controlled. Today, our Republican colleagues voted to wipe out preventive care not only for seniors, but beginning this August, a month from now, every woman in America will be able to get preventive screening. Mammograms, pap smears, blood pressure testing. That's what's being lost here, all in the name of some political opportunistic effort to try to run out once again what you thought was successful in the last election period.

Well, the American public isn't going to be fooled twice. The American public will come to know that in the Affordable Health Care Act there is real benefit for Americans.

Mr. Tonko, thank you for bringing us to this floor. Thank you for bringing us the opportunity to talk about what is real.

I thank you, and I suspect we're going to hear once again this is a government takeover. That's not true. It's not true at all. This is built upon the private delivery system that we presently have. Talk about the government designing or taking over the policy is just not true. I know this. I was the insurance commissioner. I know that it is actually the insurance companies heretofore before this bill that actually did that.

Mr. Tonko, thank you so very much for your leadership on this and your passion for it. We are out of time.

This issue is not going to go away. This issue will be around. I would hope, as it is discussed in the months ahead, that we actually get down past the rhetoric and talk about the real facts of what is in the Affordable Health Care Act. It's an extraordinary improvement for America's health care.

Thank you very much, Mr. Tonko.

I thank the Members of this House for what is an extraordinary debate--a debate of which there is a lot of false information.

I was the insurance commissioner in California, and I can talk about these insurance issues forever. But what I would really like to focus on is the fact that the law that is in the land today really helps people. It would help people like my deceased sister-in-law, a juvenile diabetic. She spent the last 10 years of her life struggling to get insurance, which she couldn't get because she had a preexisting condition. That won't be the case in the future for those with juvenile diabetes. They'll be able to get insurance. They'll be able to get it through an exchange in their States--at least those States that have it--at an affordable cost. And if they don't have the income, they'll have a subsidy to buy the insurance.

It will help people like the son of my chief of staff, who was born with kidney failure. He had insurance from conception until hours after he was born. But the insurance company dropped him. That won't happen any more because children throughout this Nation will be able to stay on their parents' policy because of this law.

It will help people like my daughter, who turned 21 and the insurance company that had covered her for 21 years dumped her. Because of this law, she is now on my policy--and for 17 million other young adults who have insurance as a result of this law.

I can talk forever about the way in which the insurance companies discriminate based upon age, sex, preexisting conditions, and across this Nation millions upon millions of Americans were denied coverage, but are no longer because of the Patients' Bill of Rights.

This is insurance reform on steroids. And I wish I had this law available to me when I was insurance commissioner in California. This is a good law. This is a very, very good thing for Americans.

Thank you, Mr. Ellison. Thank you so very much for your consistent and strong voice on what we really need to do here in America to take care of people.

At the beginning of the day and at the end of the day, our task is to fulfill that message of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This day really, in many ways, fulfills that.

Think about it. Can you have life without health care? Well, probably not for very long. Most everybody I know has had a sickness at one point or another. If you don't get health care, you may very well lose your life.

Happiness? We know that most of the bankruptcies--this is before the great crash--are a direct result of health care and not having sufficient insurance or not having insurance. With regard to happiness, wow.

Of course, liberty. You just think about the number of Americans that are literally chained or tied to their job because they have health care there. If they want to leave, if they want to pursue a different course, they want to improve, they can't, because they are tied to their job because of health care. They can't get it.

Today, the Supreme Court said that what this House did with the Affordable Health Care Act is constitutional. It is constitutional. It is possible for us. As we just heard from Mr. Kucinich, it is possible for us to reform the health care system.

My thoughts are so happy for America, so happy for that man that I saw 5 years ago that was on his deathbed, and he said, If I can just live another 5 months, I'll be on Medicare and I can get the treatments that I need without bankrupting my family. Today he probably will be able to get that. It's a good day.

I was the insurance commissioner for 8 years in California. And if only I had this law, if only this law were in place, I could have hammered those insurance companies that were discriminating against people who had preexisting conditions. But I didn't have this law. So they were able to get away with discriminating against women because they are women. Because they are of child-bearing age, they may have a child; and it might cost the insurance companies money.

My chief of staff had a child who was born with an ailment. That kid, from the day of conception to the day after he was born, had insurance. As soon as the insurance company found out that that child had a serious problem, they stopped the insurance. The family almost went into bankruptcy; but for the friends and support around them, they would have done so. That is over.

Every child born in America will continue to have health care coverage, whether they are healthy or not. It's a good day. It's a good day for the children. It's a good day for the people of America.

Let me just take up some of those numbers because they're very, very exciting.

Thirteen million Americans will receive $1.1 billion in rebates because the insurance companies have overcharged them. That didn't happen before this bill. I didn't have that power, as insurance commissioner, to do that; 54 million Americans that are in private health insurance plans will receive free preventative services as a result of this legislation.

And, of course, women--millions across this Nation-- will receive free coverage for comprehensive women's preventative health services: Pap smears, breast x rays and the like. In 2011, 32.5 million seniors received one or more preventative services. In 2012, 14 million seniors have already received these services.

105 million Americans will no longer have a lifetime limit on their coverage. Before this bill was in effect, if you go up to $100,000 or $200,000--if you had a serious illness, you could go through that, bam--that's it. You don't get any more coverage. No longer. No more limits. Lifetime limits are gone.

Seventeen million children with preexisting conditions can no longer be denied coverage by insurance companies; 6.6 million young adults-- what you were just talking about--you are talking about my daughter. She graduated at the age of 21, 22; lost her insurance. The day after this bill passed, she said, Dad, can I get back on your policy? The answer was yes. Actually, it took 6 months, but it did happen. 5.3 million seniors in the doughnut hole--this is the drug coverage portion--have saved $3.7 billion on prescription drugs already.

Now, our good friends, the Republicans, want to repeal all of this. So you go through this list: 13 million Americans will not receive a rebate if the Republicans succeed in repealing the bill; 54 million Americans will not receive preventative services; 6.6 million young Americans will not be on their parents' coverage between the age of 21 and 26. There are a lot of takeaways from what the Republicans want to do with their repeal.

Thank you so very much, Mr. Ellison. And thank you for your leadership on this and so many other issues.

I'm looking at that sign next to you: ``Republicans' No-Jobs Agenda.'' A repeal of the Affordable Health Care Act and the Patients' Bill of Rights is not going to create jobs. In fact, it is going to make it very, very difficult for small businesses because the Affordable Health Care Act actually helps small businesses.

They don't have the mandate. Small businesses don't have the mandate. But what they do have is an opportunity. They have an opportunity to get health insurance at an affordable cost, which they've never had before. Small business, one-person, or husband and wife, perhaps, and two or three employees, it literally was impossible for them to get affordable health insurance for themselves and for their three employees.

Under this bill, they can get it. It's subsidized, to be sure. But they can finally get insurance. And across the State of California and across this Nation we're finding thousands upon thousands of businesses for the first time going into the insurance market, able to buy insurance, getting coverage for themselves and their employees while providing what insurance must do, which is the knowledge and the stability that is necessary for the finances of that business to succeed.

The other thing--and I'm just going to pick up one more that's very, very close to me--in California, the Affordable Care Act provided funding for 1,154 clinics. Way back in 1978, when I was in the California legislature, and in 1976 as a member of the Assembly, I authored legislation to establish the Rural Health Act. And that built clinics in the rural part of California. And today, as a result of that, there are

clinics all across the State of California, and the Affordable Care Act keeps those clinics in business.

This is where many Californians and across this Nation Americans access the health care system. It's there in their community. These are the community clinics that are so critically important in providing the health care that Americans need. The call for repeal kills these clinics. These clinics will die if this bill is repealed.

So out across the State, even in the most conservative part of my new district, Colusa County, there are clinics that are dependent upon this legislation and will be able to continue as a result of the Affordable Care Act, found by the Supreme Court, including Chief Justice Roberts, to be constitutional. This is constitutional. The legislature, Congress, and the Senate and the President have the power to solve one of the great America dilemmas: The health care system.

Over time, we'll change this. We'll make modifications. Among those modifications ought to be an expansion of Medicare, which is efficient, effective, and universally available to every American over the age of 65. How good it is. How hard and how determined people are--if I can just live to 65, I'll have Medicare. It's a great program. We ought to expand it. We ought to make it universal.

Mr. Ellison, I don't know how much time you have.

Well, there are things we can talk about.

Let's talk about that.

Well, I do. And like most of my Democratic colleagues, we just walked out of this Chamber and said this is not worthy of the dignity of the House of Representatives. And we weren't going to honor this process with our presence.

Let's go back here. The Fast and Furious programs actually began in the George W. Bush administration, I think, around 2005, 2006. And there were two iterations of it, two different projects that were underway out of the Phoenix office of the ATF. And they were trying to find out who the gunrunners were. We've all watched the Western movies and the gunrunners. Well, there are American gunrunners that were running guns to the narco folks in Mexico. We wanted to find out what is going on here, where are these guns coming from. And that was, once again, during the George W. Bush administration and had gone on for 2, 3 years.

The Obama administration comes in. Eric Holder is chosen as Attorney General. And the program continued. The tragedy occurred. An agent was killed. And from there, Fast and Furious--this is now what we call the walking of the guns--became known. Eric Holder shut it down. In that process, a letter was written to the Senate committee saying that it didn't exist. Clearly, an error, I am told. But this House doesn't know today. Never investigated by the committee. But I am told that there was information that the office in Phoenix, Arizona, misled the office in Washington, D.C., and a letter was sent forth that was incorrect. That should be the subject of the investigation: What happened here; what actually went on in Arizona.

Not one witness from the actual operation was called to testify. Not one. So this is really a very strange and botched investigation. If you want to get to the bottom of it, you've got to talk to the people that actually did it. It didn't happen. The Democrats on the committee demanded several times: Bring forth the people who did the Fast and Furious from the Bush administration into the Obama administration. Bring them forward. Get their testimony. Find out what happened. Find out about the communications between the Phoenix office and the Washington, D.C., office. It didn't happen.

So in terms of an investigation, you have a partial investigation focusing on the end of the story rather than on the full story. And today, the first time ever in the history of this Nation, this body voted to hold in contempt a Cabinet official on a half-baked, insufficient investigation that purposefully ignored calling witnesses that were actually engaged in the Fast and Furious operation and who were responsible in the Phoenix office for that operation.

It was a farce. It was a political event, and we walked out. Not a good day.

And as you said a moment ago, there are things we must do. Men and women and families across this country are hurting. They're unemployed. They want jobs. They want to go to work. Transportation, where's the transportation bill? We never did get one out of this House that was meaningful. We just passed a little thing so we can get to conference. It had nothing in it, but it allowed us to go to conference. Where's that bill? How about student interest rates, where's that bill? And what about the jobs program?

What if the September 2011 proposal that President Obama put forward, the American Jobs Act, what if we had taken that up? Three million, 4 million Americans would be working today. What if we had done that? But it didn't happen. Our colleagues on the Republican side refused to bring it up in this House and refused to allow it to be brought up in the Senate. That's sad. That's a very sad thing for America. It is one of the great ``we should haves,'' but we were prevented from doing so.

Well, I, too, must go. But I thank you very much for allowing me to talk about three very important things. I appreciate that, Mr. Ellison.

You must mean Make It in America. Spend our tax money on American-made equipment and jobs, not on Chinese or Japanese or anybody else, but on American jobs. We can do that.

I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, we just heard a rather strong plea from one of my Republican colleagues about the transportation program and whether Democrats and Republicans should continue to fight about who did what when or didn't do it.

This amendment is something that we all ought to agree to. This amendment is something that both Democrats and Republicans should be supporting. This amendment is about American jobs--not foreign jobs, not about shifting our jobs overseas, but rather about bringing those jobs back home. This amendment is about making it in America. This amendment is about no longer allowing our tax money to be spent on foreign-made equipment but, rather, to require that our tax money be spent on American-made equipment so that there will be American jobs.

This is not a Republican or a Democratic issue. This is an all- American issue. This is about making it in America. It simply says that the current 60 percent requirement is insufficient and that we ought to have a higher requirement of 85 percent. And I will argue strongly--and I think correctly--that 85 percent is achievable.

I'll give two examples: In a recent contract for the new BART trains, the Bay Area Rapid Transit trains, one bidder--a French company, Alstom--said that they could build those trains at 95 percent. A second bidder--foreign, Bombardier--said they would do it at 66 percent. Unfortunately, BART decided to go with the 66 percent because it was a couple of percentage points cheaper. $1 billion in American jobs were lost.

Within a month after that, Los Angeles wanted to build some new transit cars. Siemens said they could build those transit cars at 85 percent American content. They lost that bid to a Korean company because there was a couple of percentage points difference. Again, millions of American jobs, millions of dollars spent overseas, and American jobs lost.

It's time for us to bring the jobs home. It's time for us to onshore. It's time for us to make it in America. And it's time for us, as Democrats and Republicans, to do just that. And that's what this amendment does.

I suspect it will be ruled out of order. What a shame. What a shame that we cannot stand here on the floor, amend a bill that's going to, over time, spend $60 billion, and not require that that money, our tax money, be spent in America.

What's wrong with making it in America? Oh, I suppose it has to do with some point of order. Do you think the American public really wants to hear a point of order? Or do they want to hear about American-made equipment and American jobs? No. We'll do a point of order, which I will appeal and probably lose. And thousands upon thousands of American jobs will be lost because of a point of order rather than for this House to stand up and say, We're going to make it in America. We're going to spend our tax money on American jobs, on American-made equipment.

So give me your point of order, and let's see what the American public has to say about your point of order.

I yield back the balance of my time

On the point of order, I thank the chairman for his thoughts on the issue. But for his consistency, I cannot thank him. I think I understand that we seem to operate on rules, unless we don't want to operate on those rules.

I understand that the chairman is interested in this issue and has worked, as chairman of the subcommittee, to try to raise the level of American-made, and I thank him for that.

We have an opportunity here to really take this issue up and put aside the rules and do what's good for America. This is about billions and billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs. We ought to put it aside, put aside the consistency and deal with American jobs.

I don't know what my opportunity will be to overrule the point of order. But I'm going to do everything I possibly can to see that we have American-made jobs and that we spend our tax money on American- made equipment.

I do understand the chairman's position and the bind that he's in. But sometimes consistency doesn't lead to the right result.

Madam Speaker, the gentlelady was quite correct about worrying about the price of gasoline. And as you sit around talking about that, you ought to be concerned about the 24 million gallons of gasoline that's exported from the United States every day. You might also want to consider that the price of natural gas has plummeted by more than 60 percent during the Obama administration, providing us with an extraordinary opportunity for growth.

But what I'd really like to talk about is, this bill is not a Strategic Energy Production Act. It does not deal with the renewable energy. In fact, the wind energy industry in the United States is about to come to a screeching halt. Seventy-five thousand jobs are presently in this industry. We are already beginning to see the downsizing-- 17,000 are now being laid off because the production tax credit is not being extended. If we were to extend the production tax credit, we could probably find another 37,000 people working next year.

If we added to this my piece of legislation, H.R. 487, which requires that our tax dollars--in this case, the production tax credit--be spent on American-made equipment, we could see, perhaps, even more manufacturing in the United States.

Bottom line: the Strategic Energy Production Act is an act for the oil and coal industry. It is not for America. We need to change that. We need to look at all of the above, not just oil and coal.