Floor Statements

Well, Mr. Speaker, our long wait is over. A year and a half after their move to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the Republicans are back with the ``replace'' part of their ``Repeal and Replace'' slogan. And rather than offering an answer to comprehensive health care for 30 million more Americans, who need it, all they have to offer today is a tax break for Tylenol. Well, I'll tell you, health care in this country is more than a two-Tylenol headache, and it needs a more comprehensive response.

Of course, the real purpose of their action today is just this week's attempt to wreck the Affordable Care Act and to protect health insurance monopolies. Some of these are the very same health insurers that demand more than 20 cents of every dollar for their overhead--20 cents; 10 times the administrative cost of the Medicare system.

But our Republican colleagues never let reality get in the way of ideology when they question most any government initiative that is called ``public,'' as in public education, or ``social,'' as in Social Security. As usual, they continue to demand legislation that offers more comfort for the comfortable, while actually increasing the number of uninsured by 350,000. Understand that. If this legislation becomes law, instead of decreasing the number of uninsured American families, we'll have 350,000 more Americans that don't have health insurance. That's their plan.

Our country continues to face a real health care crisis. Too many small businesses and individuals are paying too much for too little health care. Millions of families are just one accident on the way home from work this evening, or one illness, one child with a disability, from facing personal bankruptcy. That has not changed.

The Affordable Care Act I believe is too weak. It should be much stronger. But it is so much better than the system we find ourselves in today with so many lacking so much. And it's far superior to the Republican do-little or do-next-to-nothing approach; give the American people half a life preserver, which is their approach.

As always, when there is a need for public action, whether it is building a better bridge or more bridges, or providing an opportunity for more young Americans to get a college education, or health care--be it preventive care, school-based care, long-term care--the Republican answer is always the same: No. No. And their excuse is always the same, too: ``The deficit made me do it.''

``I'd like to do something about long-term care, but we just can't afford to do it.'' What a contrast when it comes to bills like that of today.

Because whenever it is about depleting the Treasury's ability to fund those affordable needs for our country, they don't worry too much about the deficit. $46 billion earlier in the year; this bill is part of a package of almost $42 billion of additional revenue depletion. Later in the summer, we are told they will come up with $4 trillion of Bush tax cut extensions.

What this will ultimately lead to, if we pursue the irresponsible path,--of which this is just another step--is that vital public programs that work--Medicare and Social Security--cannot be sustained.

They cannot be financed. There is no free lunch to retirement and health security in this country. It requires that we invest in a responsible way, and that's what the Affordable Health Care Act does.

Reject this legislation today, which will undermine that reform, and set us back in our efforts to provide health care security to millions of American families.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to instruct the conferees on the transportation conference bill.

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

This transportation conference bill is appropriately focused on the transportation systems, on improving them and sustaining them across our country. But there is one important provision of this measure, as approved by the United States Senate, that deals with transportation networks of a different type. Those are the secret networks that lead to the exporting of jobs and of revenues that ought to be used in the financing of the operations of the essential services and national defense of our country.

This motion is very narrow, very directed. Since that particular provision concerning ``stop tax haven abuse'' was not included in the House bill, it simply instructs the conferees to recede to the version approved by the Senate. This is an important provision. It is a provision that will authorize special measures against foreign governments and financial institutions. Here is the key language of the amendment as adopted by the Senate: ``that significantly impede U.S. tax enforcement.''

This provision will be just one more tool that is available for the Treasury to address what some have estimated is as much as $100 billion a year that is drained from the United States Treasury as a result of offshore tax abuses. These abuses not only undermine public confidence in our tax system from all the many law-abiding taxpayers, both business and individual taxpayers, but the effect of these abuses is that the deficit is raised and that more of the tax burden is shifted to individual taxpayers and to small businesses that don't have the fancy accountants and attorneys and financial institutions to aid them in hiding their revenues.

As we continue debating how best to deal with our debt and our deficits, I believe that a fundamental principle that should apply is that, before we ask individual taxpayers or business taxpayers to pay additional taxes, we ought to ensure, for those who have abused the system and have avoided paying their fair share of taxes, that we have the enforcement tools to see that they fulfill their responsibilities.

I always find it extremely difficult to explain to a mechanic in San Marcos or to a small restaurant owner in San Antonio why it is that they have to pay a greater proportion--a higher rate--on their taxes than some of these multinationals that manage to shift their revenues offshore because some bankers or accountants are able to use these tax haven banks to hide the accounts in some remote jurisdiction.

Over the years, I've fought against this kind of abuse. It took a decade, but finally, a couple of years ago, I was successful in getting the Economic Substance Doctrine included in other legislation and approved in order to strike down phony transactions that were for no purpose other than that of tax avoidance. I have other legislation that I've offered that deals with schemes that other corporations use to siphon off much-needed tax revenue and jobs out of the United States. It is a big problem that does not have any one legislative solution, but the measure before us that would be encouraged by this motion to instruct does provide one tool that would be very useful.

We know that some foreign banks have peddled a wide array of offshore tax shelters, offering to set up paper firms and accounts in places like Switzerland, Panama, and the British Virgin Islands. Indeed, in 2009, the United States sued Swiss Financial Services and the banking firm UBS to force the disclosure of the thousands of undeclared assets of Americans that were being held in secret accounts abroad.

Just to get an inkling of how big this problem is, Mr. Speaker and colleagues, I will note that at this one bank, at this one Swiss bank, it admitted to $18 billion in undeclared assets of American clients that could well be taxable. This has cost the United States Treasury billions of dollars over the years, and this was just one bank in one country. Although a settlement was eventually achieved, I don't think we got all of the tax revenues back that we ought to have gotten back. This is really just an indication of how rampant this problem is and how necessary a provision of this type pending in the conference really is.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

A distraction? A billion dollar distraction. We get a billion dollars more transportation out of this measure available for all of the States, if we approve this section, which the Senate has adopted.

A distraction? Tell that to the cleaning crew that pays a higher rate of taxes when they clean the corporate board room than the corporation does because of these secret tax havens. I think this goes to the core of our responsibilities. And, yes, these powerful lobby groups that line up their limousines outside the Capitol here, they manage to block consideration in these committees, but this Motion brings this important matter directly to the floor for action.

With that, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore), who serves on the Financial Services Committee and understands how urgent it is to address this problem.

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

I want to even the time, and perhaps there is someone else in the House that actually opposes this motion. I want to allow them time to speak. So I would continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Then, Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.

Apparently, there is no other Member who is willing to come out and defend these abusive tax shelters. That says a whole lot about the merits of this motion and how essential it is to adopt it.

With that, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Peters).

Yes, we do.

I would like to inquire if the gentleman from New York has anyone to defend opposition to this measure.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself an additional 3 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, this is a truly amazing debate. The motion is a narrow one asking that the House simply join with Republicans and Democrats in the United States Senate to include within this transportation bill a provision that will yield about an additional billion dollars for the repair of bridges, for the construction of transportation systems around the country.

It will do so not by raising taxes or the tax rate on anyone, not even by closing one of the many outrageous loopholes that exist in our tax law that allow some to gain advantage because of the power of their lobbyists and their accountants to write special provisions into the law and then exploit those provisions. No, it doesn't do any of that. It simply gives a tool to our law enforcement to enforce existing laws and to say that you cannot violate the law. Here is a way for the Treasury Department to enforce the laws effectively.

As the gentlewoman from Wisconsin pointed out, there is an infrastructure in place upon which this amendment properly builds and which Senator Carl Levin, who is the author of this amendment to the Transportation bill, and who has been a national leader in fighting tax abuse, built on by drawing this provision from legislation that he and I have filed independent of this bill, the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act.

Special law enforcement provisions are granted by the PATRIOT Act with respect to money-laundering concerns. If the Secretary of the Treasury finds that reasonable grounds exist for concluding that a foreign government or a financial institution is involved in money laundering, the Secretary may impose special measures. That's exactly what this provision would do now for those that are involved in substantial tax abuse.

This particular PATRIOT Act provision has been used sparingly by the Treasury. It has not been abused. It was used, for example, against the country of Burma. It has been used to stop financial firms for laundering funds through the United States financial system. Other times, the Treasury has pinpointed its measures against a single problem financial institution to stop laundered funds from entering the United States.

The Stop Tax Haven Abuse provision that is included in this transportation bill and, which is now under consideration by the conference would empower the Secretary of the Treasury to use the same types of tools it currently has to deal with those that significantly impede U.S. tax enforcement.

In addition to the existing measures available, it would also give the Treasury the authority to block U.S. banks from honoring credit or debit cards from foreign entities that are primarily money-laundering concerns or that significantly hamper U.S. tax enforcement. Because of these sanctions, the Treasury will have an added tool needed to end offshore tax abuses that allow tax cheats to profit at the expense of honest taxpayers.

The amendment would confer discretionary authority upon the Treasury. The Treasury does not have to use this authority; but it has a new tool, when needed, to address these abuses. These special measures offer the Treasury necessary flexibility in dealing with tax dodgers.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds.

I would observe how extraordinary it is that there are those just like these secret accounts held in abusive places abroad, there are those in the wings of the Capitol that oppose this measure and don't want to end tax abuse, but they are unwilling to come to this floor and speak about it. One person who is willing to come to the floor to speak about it is the victorious Bill Pascrell of New Jersey. I am honored to have him join me. He has worked with me in the House Ways and Means Committee to speak against this type of abuse.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

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

Does the gentleman from New York anticipate that he will have any further speakers this afternoon?

If the gentleman is ready to close, I will use the balance of my time. I believe I have the right to close on the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, throughout this debate there's only one thing that both sides agree upon, and that is that this transportation bill ought to move forward, and move forward expeditiously.

This transportation bill has not moved forward expeditiously because of obstruction here in the House. It should have become law long ago-- months ago, perhaps years ago--so that we could deal with the infrastructure problems in this country and deal with the jobs that could be created by doing the hard work of building things that we need in order to strengthen our economy and improve job growth in the private sector. That's where the agreement begins and that's where the agreement ends, because the basic position of the gentleman in coming to oppose this motion is to present no argument, on the merits, as to why this provision that the Senate has already adopted, with Republican and Democratic Senate support combined, should not become law.

Let me tell you a little of the perspective I bring to this.

About 10 days ago, I went one business to another across San Antonio. I was at a tire shop. They put on wheels, tires, rims on cars and pickups. It's hot, dirty work. They struggle to make a living. They work long hours. They work odd hours. They're not air-conditioned. They've got to deal with local regulations, government at all levels, pay their taxes, meet their payroll, take care of their sick workers.

I was down the street from there at a tamale factory. A woman had a great idea and expanded it so that she's selling tamales all over America, and they're great. It was a good way to begin the day to eat some of her tamales.

Those folks are working hard to make a living and they're like some of the folks with Startup America, the small tech companies that I have represented in Austin, and now increasingly in San Antonio, that have an idea. One group I talked to, their office was at a local coffee shop until they were asked to leave. They sat there with their computers. They came up with an idea, and now they have multiple employees in a new startup.

Why is it that those kind of businesses, whether it's putting on tire rims on a pickup truck or a startup tech company, ought to have to pay a higher rate of taxes than some company that can afford to link up with a foreign bank and a big CPA firm and hide their revenues in a bank in Switzerland or in Panama or in the Cayman Islands?

It cries out that this Congress would correct that injustice. And the fact that that injustice is not being corrected by this Congress tells us so much about the broader problems that we have here in Washington. If you just watched the last hour of this debate, you should be aware of people that linger around this Capitol whispering in

the corridors, hiding in the shadows, coming out only at campaign time, when now, under the campaign rules, they can pour unlimited amounts of secret corporate money into their favorite candidate, and they decide that we haven't had enough process on this issue.

Let me tell you, it took 10 years to get a small provision added through the Ways and Means Committee to simply say you can't go out and do a transaction simply for the purpose of dodging taxes; it has to have some actual ``economic substance.'' Ten years in which some avoided paying their fair share because of an unjustified loophole.

My little company down there in San Antonio that changes tires all day, they've probably never been to Switzerland, much less considered hiring a bank in Switzerland to help them hide their revenues that they worked so hard to earn and which some of these companies involved in these abusive transactions just consider to be rather routine.

You say, well, this is just academic; surely people can't get away with this stuff. Let me tell you what they're getting away with.

I pointed out already that with regard to one bank in Switzerland, UBS, they finally had to disclose $18 billion--that's billion with a B--$18 billion of assets of United States citizens sitting there in hidden accounts in that bank. There were some 50,000 such accounts that UBS had to disclose. Eventually, they had to pay over $700 million in fines. But they're not the only bank that is involved. Currently, the Treasury has under investigation 11 Swiss banks. There's one bank that is under Federal indictment.

This is not an academic problem. It's academic only to those who talk about process instead of solutions. We have a serious problem that undermines the confidence in our government and in our system of tax collection.

Why should somebody who's out there struggling at that tire rim company or that tech startup or just a working family that's out there trying to make ends meet with two people, some working overtime, some working the night shift in order to provide the food and fiber that their family needs to survive, why should they have to comply with our tax laws when you have these kind of companies that could afford the special treatment, that can afford the lobbyists to block measures like this engaged in abuse?

So today I would say to you that there is an opportunity for this House to make itself clear on this issue. Yes, we want to move a transportation bill. And while Republicans have told us we can have transportation without really paying for it, we have a measure adopted by the U.S. Senate on a bipartisan basis, that will provide us a billion dollars more of the transportation we need.

But we not only get that additional transportation, we have an opportunity today to make our position clear to all of the people of America:

Do you stand on the side of preventing abuse, do you stand on the side of equity and fairness to all American taxpayers, or do you want special treatment? Do you want the few, the privileged, to continue to enjoy the privilege of the connivance that goes on between some of these folks and their lobbyists and their accountants and their high- powered lawyers to get advantages that most Americans don't have or want?

As far as I'm concerned, almost no matter what the topic is on this floor of this House, that's the basic issue involved: whether there will be equity and fairness that gives Americans confidence in this system of government, in this democracy, or whether it again and again will be subverted--and in this case, with one Member coming to offer an objection to the motion, not because the matter doesn't have merit, but because it hadn't been studied enough. We have studied this problem to death. It cries out for an answer today, and this motion is a narrow way of answering it.

It won't solve all of the problems. There will still be ways that these special interests will find to dodge and avoid their fair share of taxes. But it will close one abuse. It will give our law enforcement authorities one more tool to deal with criminal tax evasion. I believe we ought to adopt this very narrow measure and write it into the laws of the United States. Send this bill that has been lingering for so long to the President to be signed, and include in it the fact that this Congress did at least one little thing to address the inequities, the special privileges and advantages that the few enjoy here in Washington. Say ``no'' to unjustified privileges, and ``yes'' to prompt action on this transportation bill, and include that $1 billion of additional transportation revenues.

I urge my colleagues to adopt this motion to instruct and to do it promptly today, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, under rule XXII, clause 7(c), I hereby announce my intention to offer a motion to instruct on H.R. 4348, the transportation conference report.

The form of the motion is as follows:

Mr. Doggett moves that the managers on the part of the

House at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two

Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4348 be

instructed to recede from disagreement with the provisions

contained in section 100201 of the Senate amendment (relating

to stop tax haven abuse--authorizing special measures against

foreign jurisdictions, financial institutions, and others

that significantly impede United States tax enforcement).

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

I am pleased to join my colleague from North Dakota in our truly bipartisan effort on behalf of H.R. 4282, the International Child Support Recovery Improvement Act. He has made an excellent statement regarding the need for this legislation.

International borders should never be barriers to children receiving the financial support that their parents are obligated to provide, nor should a parent be able to avoid their responsibility by just leaving the country. That's why the United States has previously adopted reciprocal agreements with a number of other nations to collect child support from deadbeat parents who do not live in the same country as their children. But these agreements don't cover many nations, and the procedures sometimes vary from nation to nation. A more comprehensive approach is to enter into a broad convention, another type of treaty, to ensure the international collection of child support.

In 2010, the Senate ratified the Hague Convention for the International Recovery of Child Support. Today's bill simply implements the treaty and provides that our child support collection across America fully complies with our treaty obligations. This will assure that more children living in the United States obtain the necessary financial support from a parent living in another country, and it will also protect taxpayers who ought not have to be responsible for covering the expenses when a parent is obligated to do so.

Exemplifying the need for today's bill is the plea of a mother from Houston, who wrote to the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement:

Please help me collect child support from my daughter's

father in Venezuela. We were married years ago in the United

States. It took a long time to finalize the divorce, as he

was out of the country. Finally, the divorce went through,

which at the time was a relief. But 3 to 4 years later, my

daughter is

12 and teenage expenses are kicking in. Regardless of the

divorce requirements, he states Venezuela is unable to

conduct business with the U.S., and he's unable to send money

on his own.

Our bill would provide relief to her and many other families. Child support touches the lives of nearly one in four children across America, securing financial support for almost 18 million children-- including a million and a half children in Texas--and it's played an important role in keeping children out of poverty. Without its support, roughly half a million children would have fallen into poverty in 2010.

This bill recognizes the general premise that both parents are responsible for their children.

It would respond to another Texas mother who wrote the same office:

My ex-husband has been working for an international company

for nearly 6 years. His income the first year was $100,000.

To date, after taxes, he's clearing over $8,000 monthly. Per

our court order, I'm only receiving $260 a month, which is

now currently on hold. So therefore I'm not receiving any

funds from my child support at all. Please help me. I'm

making less money since I switched from the night shift to

days to be home with my two children. I keep making necessary

sacrifices, but I have no one to help me.

That's the kind of individual, the kind of children that would be assisted by this legislation. Passing the act would access financial support from a noncustodial parent living abroad. As with other effective child support initiatives, taxpayers will benefit by not being saddled with the cost of supporting children whose parents should be doing so.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that this bill will result in some modest net savings to the child support program. Child support advocates, as Mr. Berg indicated, along with the American Bar Association, the Conference of State Court Administrators, the Conference of Chief Justices, and the National Center for State Courts have all endorsed this legislation. It is truly a bipartisan effort that improves the well-being of many children by ensuring that their parents abroad continue to fulfill their obligations here at home in the United States to their children.

I urge approval of this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Well-known as ``Military City,'' San Antonio has accomplished a traumatic but successful conversion of Kelly and Brooks Air Force Bases. Now the Pentagon is recommending that we have another round of closures. Let's first guarantee that we apply the same rigorous base review standards to military facilities outside the United States as would apply inside the United States.

Today, I offer an amendment acceptable to the committee, similar to the approach recommended by Senators Tester and Hutchison that requires the Department of Defense to thoroughly examine the potential benefits and savings realized by closing outdated or excess overseas military bases. Both the Government Accountability Office and Congressional Budget Office say that maintaining these facilities overseas is far more expensive than our stateside operations. So while many of the 585 military bases that we have around the world may be necessary, let's ensure that the Department thoroughly scrutinizes each of them and verifies that each is essential to our national defense. This was not done adequately in the last round.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and ensure that the Pentagon carefully considers the cost of these overseas installations.

For so many, this Violence Against Women Act vote is literally a matter of life and death.

One immigrant was abused by her husband, who was a special agent for the Homeland Security Department. He threatened her that she would be deported and separated from her daughter. She sought help anyway at the excellent San Antonio Family Violence Prevention Services, through which she was provided a special visa allowing her to remain here safely.

Another woman in Austin found death. So fearful of being deported, she was eventually killed in broad daylight in front of her two little children.

We have a 2-year backlog for this visa. It is a visa that could help many. It is a visa that was approved almost unanimously in a previous Congress.

Instead of focusing on a victim's visa status, we should be focused on the fight against domestic violence.

Instead of focusing on discriminating against some in our community, we should be focused on ensuring that all victims of violence everywhere receive the care and services they need. Let's move forward in that struggle, not take another giant Republican step backward.

Mr. Speaker, normally when we think of reconciliation, we think of a coming together, of finding common ground. This is not such a reconciliation. Rather, this is a bill that provides more tax breaks to the few and more pain to the many. It is, in fact, a wreck, as in a train- or auto-wreck--``wreckonciliation.''

There is legitimate concern that we must address our budget difficulties to avoid a long-term budget wreck, but I am concerned about the wreck that this legislation under consideration today poses to the lives of so many Americans. It is a wreck for educational opportunity. The failure of this Budget Committee to address the needs of our youngest Americans with Head Start and early learning, the failure to extend the More Education tuition tax credit that I authored for more opportunity at the Alamo Colleges, at Texas State and institutions across this country.

It is a wreck for our most vulnerable neighbors, the Texas seniors, who rely on one hot meal a day from Meals on Wheels. Their director says it will be ``devastating'' to eliminate the Social Services Block Grant, a wreck for those seniors. It is a wreck for those who are relying on food security, like the 74-year-old who gave me this paper plate at the food bank in San Antonio:

``My Social Security check doesn't give me enough to buy

any groceries, just my rent and utilities. Without the food

bank, I would starve.''

Those are the kinds of people for whom this bill is a wreck right now.

We had a President once who realized the need for shared sacrifice. He had almost half of his budget from new revenue. What he said was that ``closing off special interest loopholes'' was just ``a matter of simple fairness.'' His name was Ronald Reagan. I think we might follow that example.

We would contrast that example with those Republican Presidential candidates who said they wouldn't support $1 of additional revenue for $10 of spending cuts to get our budget in balance.

This is a ``wreckonciliation'' bill that asks nothing of Mr. Exxon, that asks nothing more of hedge fund managers, but asks those who are most vulnerable in our society to share more pain.

I think we must reject this reconciliation bill which is a wreck for so many American families.

I thank the gentleman.

You know, the Republicans are always so much better in the names they give these bills than what's in them. I think in considering this one we have to look at what it is and what it is not.

It is not an economic recovery measure. A nonpartisan analysis has shown that the economic benefits are considered to be so small as to be incalculable.

It is not helpful to sole proprietors, who do not benefit at all from this bill.

It is not a way to reduce the deficit or the national debt. Indeed, this is a measure that will add $46 billion to the national deficit.

We were told only yesterday that because of a pressing national debt, we can no longer provide one source of federal funding for hot meals for seniors through the Meals on Wheels program in Texas, that we could not afford to provide Federal resources that are necessary there on child abuse or on keeping a child with disability at home, or helping seniors maintain their independence, that there just aren't the resources to do that. But today we are told there is $46 billion we can add to the debt for a nice-sounding bill.

What is this bill? It is another failed Republican retread. It is a measure that will help those at the top rather than those who are really struggling to get to the top. I'm concerned about the icehouse on the west side of San Antonio, about the beauty shop in Lockhart, about the auto repair shop in San Marcos. But those are not the places that will receive the principal benefits of this measure.

Indeed, 125,000 millionaires in this country will get more in tax benefits

out of this than many of the owners of those businesses earn during an entire year, in fact, more than the median income throughout San Antonio, Austin, and central and south Texas.

What this measure is is a boon.

It will be a boon to highly paid professionals, private equity firms, hedge fund managers, and professional sports teams. I think they've received enough economic benefit in the past with the Bush tax cuts.

We ought to be focusing our support for small businesses not on those who are already at the top and should be contributing a little to the shared sacrifice necessary to get our national debt under control and meet basic human needs.

This budget is based on the false belief that if we ask those who have the least in America to take a little less and we ask those who have the most to thicken their cushion just a little bit, that everybody will be a winner and America will grow. No matter how many times that mythology fails--most recently with the Bush-Cheney tax cuts that didn't grow the economy effectively but did grow the deficit to record levels. No matter how many times it fails, they insist on having a little more of it.

Our contrasting view on tax policy was demonstrated in the committee consideration of this bill. I suggested that we extend the higher education tax credit that I authored so that a mechanic and a nurse with a young person who's gotten their high school diploma in San Antonio, Texas, can walk over to St. Philip's or San Antonio College and have their tuition, up to $2,500--which will cover tuition and textbooks there--that they get that right off their taxes, a tax cut. They rejected that tax cut because they said it would be better if we gave a tax break to billionaires and those at the top of the economic ladder, and eventually that mechanic and that nurse and that young person would see the benefit. I don't think they do. I think they'd like to be able to choose for themselves with a higher education tax credit opportunity for the future.

And the little brother and the little sister there, or in Lockhart or in San Marcos, that want an opportunity to be prepared for school with Head Start and early education, our budget provides for them. It provides opportunity and hope for them. But Republicans insist that they ought to sacrifice a little bit more.

As for our seniors and our veterans, we suggested for veterans that we wanted to provide more job opportunities.

And as for our seniors, we suggested that getting a certificate to go fish for insurance is no substitute for Medicare.

This is about values, about dignity for those in retirement, and opportunity for our young people.

This Republican budget is not a Path to Prosperity. It's an expressway of retread ideas, an expressway to mediocrity.

I thank the gentleman.

Many an American family has been wrecked by soaring health care costs. We know it's been a leading cause of personal bankruptcy. We know that spiraling health care costs have been a leading cause of credit card debt, and now Republicans have continued their sustained effort to wreck the Affordable Care Act.

As we have been witnessing at the same time that this debate is going on within the Budget Committee, on which I also serve, the Republican plan to end the guaranteed benefits of Medicare, they think that our seniors pay too little, so they offer a voucher plan that would result in our seniors having to pay much more for their health care. They would tell the senior or the individual with disabilities, Go out and fish for insurance with this voucher. But they won't find any fish biting, though they will continue to be bitten with rising health care costs. That's why President Lyndon Johnson created Medicare in the first place, because private insurance companies weren't interested in covering the old and the infirm.

Today's approach is the same approach that Republicans took last year when they had their signature accomplishment. Right in the first month of their takeover of this Congress, they came out here with this page- and-a-half bill that I call the ``12 platitudes.'' They repealed what they said they didn't like, and they came forward with 12 lines of what they said they would replace the Affordable Care Act with. But all we've gotten since then are bills that began after they did the total repeal--repealing individual sections, like school health care clinics, like this proposal dealing with the question of health care costs.

We know they don't like it. We know they don't like President Obama and anything that he is for. They tell us everything that is wrong with the Affordable Care Act, but they sure can't come up with a better idea that they have the courage to bring to a vote in the Ways and Means Committee or bring to a vote on the floor of this House. It's all about what they're against, but they haven't brought any of the 12 platitudes that they approved last year into a legislative form to deal with this issue of spiraling cost for our government and families or to deal with any other aspect in the Affordable Care Act.

Now, I have to say, quite frankly, that I wish the Affordable Care Act were as good as they think it is bad. It's not. It is a compromise of a compromise--it has many inadequacies--but compared to the Republican alternative of doing nothing and compared to the broken health care system that has wrecked so many American families who are faced with a health care crisis, this approach is far superior.

This board's opponents tell us that Congress should be able to make all these decisions. Well, I've served on the Ways and Means Committee and on the Health Subcommittee previously for a number of years. I wish it could be so, and I think we could play a more constructive role. But, frankly, the history is that Congress hasn't done a very good job of controlling costs. When we have taken steps to control costs, as we did with the $500 billion in cost control that we put into the Affordable Care Act that increases the solvency, extends the solvency of the Medicare trust fund by 12 years, all we've gotten is attack and criticism from them for the steps that we took that did limit cost.

So I don't view this aspect of the Affordable Care Act as necessarily the best way to do it or the only way to do it. But when all they offer us is nothing except vouchering Medicare for our seniors and similar, I think we should stick with the reform that we have until a better alternative is presented, and that alternative is not being presented tonight.

Republicans don't have a plan to make the hard decisions to lower health care costs. They just want our seniors, individuals with disabilities, and families across America to pay more so that they can preserve all these tax breaks for the wealthiest and most economically successful people in our society and, for all of those corporations that export jobs abroad, to continue to provide them incentives to do just that.

I believe that this bill should be rejected just like their other repeal efforts until they come up and present on the floor a better idea, and I don't think they have one. They just have all the retreads of the Bush-Cheney years. Until then, I say stick with the Affordable Care Act.

This bill, like most that come out here from the Republicans, has a great name. It's a Pro-Growth Budgeting Act. It's not a pro-growth budget--big difference--but a Pro-Growth Budgeting Act. And like so many of the pieces of legislation that they offer us, the substance of the bill does exactly the opposite of the title.

This would better be named the ``Dig Deeper Now'' legislation, or the ``Mandate Voodoo Economics'' legislation. It attempts to enshrine Republican dogma that even an elementary arithmetic student would have some question about. It's based on the theology that the best way to get more is to do less; that if you have less revenue coming in, you somehow will eventually get more revenue coming in. And it just hasn't worked that way.

Their approach is much like the alchemist of old, who, when faced with a problem that he could not convert straw into gold, simply responds, give me more straw. They can't get enough straw in the form of tax cuts to talk about at their political conventions. But when they apply them, we don't need dynamic scoring to know what the effect is. We have history, and that history is not very favorable to this whole concept that somehow less means more.

We have the ``dynamic'' Bush tax cuts to look at and what their effect has been. And the Congressional Budget Office tells us that the effect has been they cost $1 trillion, $1 trillion toward the budget deficit that we have, and if we extend the Bush tax cuts for those at the very top, again, it will cost another trillion dollars. That's trillion with a ``t'' in both cases, and it is a big impact in digging us into the hole that we're in, that we're trying to work our way out of with what should be a Pro-Growth Budget Act, a jobs act, instead of something that is a name that bears no resemblance to the substance of the bill.

How about the experience with economic growth? What American would not like to have the economic growth of the Clinton years, when the tax rates were actually higher than the experience of the Bush years, where the tax rates may have been lower, but so was the economic growth, almost 4 percent a year under President Clinton, and down to about 2 percent under President Bush from 2001 to 2008.

Likewise, with job growth, dynamic job growth under President Clinton, job losses under President Bush. That's the history, the experience that we have with this theory, this ideology that somehow less revenue means more revenue.

Only yesterday, in the Budget Committee, we heard the testimony of the Congressional Budget Office, objective testimony, that if we extend----

We heard objective testimony that if we extend all of the Bush tax cuts for the next decade, we will have less economic growth in this country, not more economic growth, as their theology maintains. And the testimony we're hearing is not limited to Democratic witnesses. Even the Republican witnesses who have come before our committees in the past have conceded that these Bush tax cuts did not pay for themselves.

We've seen the result of voodoo economics. We've seen the results of supply side and trickle down. It's time to take a more dynamic approach for the American economy, and that's a jobs bill that will meet the needs of working families across this country instead of playing games with the numbers and trying to show that the impossible is reality.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I'm against fraud. I think everyone here is against it. I'm for what's in this bill. That's why I voted for it back in December, and I'll vote for it next month, too, if that will make for more cooperation here in the House. I think, in a way, this is this election year's ``welfare Cadillac.'' And I was against welfare Cadillacs, if there ever were any of those, too.

This year, we have the ``strip club loophole'' that has been defined as a political term to suggest that we have a lot of problems with poor people abusing their benefits. And to the extent that any poor person abuses even a dollar of these benefits and keeps those benefits out of the mouths of hungry children, providing the clothes those kids need to go to school, I'm against that, and I plan to vote against it today.

I favor comprehensive legislation against fraud in public assistance. It concerns me when a pharmaceutical company ends up having to settle for $158 million in my home State of Texas because they allegedly lied about drug safety and bribed officials. It concerns me when a pharmaceutical company in the State of Texas has an $84 million Medicaid fraud case brought against it. I think we need to be concerned about fraud in all of its aspects.

I'd feel better about this bill, however--because I think repassing it will accomplish practically nothing, I'd feel much better about this legislative effort if there were just an ounce of the concern that is voiced about the very few people who abuse these benefits, if the same level of concern were expressed about the many who are there who are counting on the safety net, as flawed and frayed as it is, who were concerned about them and their families and their struggle to share in the American Dream and were doing something to get that approved.

Yes, we approved this piece of legislation as part of a broader extension of the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program in December. And why hasn't that become law?

It is separate legislation pending in the Senate. It is also part of the broader legislation extending the provisions on unemployment, on payroll tax relief. It ought to become law because we need to be concerned about those families that are playing by the rules as well as the very few who are not playing by the rules.

Now, the gentleman has said that in some States action has already been taken--California, notably--to deal with the few who might be cashing their benefits at a casino or a liquor store or whatever. Texas, my home State, was cited as one of those States that has already taken action. I think that's great. There's not anything to keep the States from taking action on this already, if this is a serious problem.

Now, some of them have not acted, not because of a lack of concern about fraud but because the mechanics of correcting these electronic benefit cards may actually be more expensive than the cost that is being experienced by the small number of people that might abuse the card.

You take Arizona, for example. Governor Brewer has plenty of time to shake her finger in the face of the President of the United States, to support legislation to discriminate against Hispanic families, who have been in that State for longer than she and her family have been in the State. If she thinks this is a serious problem, why doesn't she act at the State level, as Texas and California and some other States have done, to address this problem?

I would submit, while I don't object to this legislation in and of itself, that the bigger problem that we face is that the number of poor American families has surged over the last 4 years, up 27 percent. Ten million people are below what is officially agreed on as being the poverty line. And this Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program provides a few of those families a little bit of assistance, to have a chance to turn their lives around until they can find longer term employment to provide for their families.

How much money are we talking about that might be abused or wasted at one of these facilities, which might just happen to be the maintenance crew at the casino that use their benefits there. Or it might just happen to be the only store convenient in a poor neighborhood is one that's mostly selling alcoholic beverages, that they choose to do that. How much might they be abusing?

Let me tell you in my home State of Texas the median benefit for a single parent with two children is $244 for an entire month to take care of those two children, 16 percent of the poverty level.

I want to be concerned, yes, about a dollar that is wasted. These are hard-earned tax dollars that go into these programs. We need to be concerned about every cent of abuse. But we also need to be concerned about the many who stand to benefit, who stand to have hope taken away if they don't see these benefits extended.

My concern about that is not merely academic because of what happened last year, the bipartisan agreement that had extended through many years called the supplemental program, which was really a survival program for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families in poorer States like Texas. The Republicans chose to discontinue that program even though it had enjoyed bipartisan support and had received support letters from a number of Republican officials in our area. They chose to not continue that, and that has severely weakened the safety net in our State. That's not being continued.

Whether they intend to abandon the entire Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program or cut it back substantially, it's hard to tell, given the fact that they're going only with the very modest provisions of this bill and not pushing to provide assistance to all of those who need that help.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I commend the gentleman for his service as our subcommittee chair and on the data issue that will be important in reducing any kind of abuse of public assistance.

I now yield 2 minutes to my colleague from the Budget Committee and someone who's very knowledgeable about this, Ms. Moore from Wisconsin.

I yield the gentlelady 1 additional minute.

I yield myself 30 seconds to place into the Record a letter from the National Conference of State Legislatures as well as a letter from the American Public Human Services Association and the National Association of State TANF Administrators.

The gentleman may be right. He clearly lacks confidence in States' rights in these areas. The letter from the National Conference of State Legislatures points out that there is a financial burden that would be imposed on the States and that ``the States have existing contracts with vendors that may have to be changed at a significant cost to the States.'' Let us hope that does not happen.

They come out firmly in opposition to this bill. I do not share that opposition, but I think they raise a legitimate concern about the added cost as well as the lack of confidence of my Republican colleagues in the ability of the States to police their own programs.

National Conference of

State Legislatures,

January 30, 2012.

Hon. John Boehner,

Speaker of the House,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Nancy Pelosi,

Minority Leader,

Washington, DC.

Dear Speaker Boehner and Minority Leader Pelosi: On behalf

of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), we

write in opposition to H.R. 3567, the ``Welfare Integrity for

Children and Families Act of 2011,'' which is scheduled for a

vote on the Floor under Suspension of the Rules on Wednesday,

February 1. States share your concern about the inappropriate

use of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)

benefits; however, NCSL strongly believes that these

decisions are appropriately made at the state level.

When Welfare Reform was enacted in 1996 (P.L. 104-193),

state and federal policymakers agreed to forgo the open-ended

entitlement of AFDC for the flexibility afforded in the fixed

TANF block grant. In this agreement, policy decision making

authority was left up to the states including state

legislatures. Mandating states to limit Electronic Benefit

Transfer (EBT) transactions preempts state authority over the

TANF block grant and undermines the strong state-federal

partnership undertaken in 1996. Additionally, NCSL is

concerned about the financial burden this mandate would

impose on states, many of whose fiscal situation is still

perilous. States have existing contracts with EBT vendors

that might need to be changed at significant cost to the

state if this bill becomes law.

States are addressing the issues raised in H.R. 3567. To

date, California and Washington have limited the use of EBT

cards and addressed the complex implementation process of

limiting EBT card usage. Many additional states are looking

at similar EBT limitations and other ways to combat fraud and

abuse in their current sessions.

If you have any questions regarding what states are doing

to address the concerns of H.R. 3567 or to discuss the bill,

please do not hesitate to contact Sheri Steisel

([email protected]) or Emily Wengrovius

([email protected]).

Sincerely,

The Honorable Tom Hansen,

South Dakota Senate, Chair NCSL Human Services & Welfare

Committee.

The Honorable Barbara W. Ballard,

Kansas House of Representatives, Chair NCSL Human Services

& Welfare Committee.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

I yield the gentlelady 1 additional minute.

I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.

Well, I couldn't agree with the gentleman more about the importance of preserving, in his words, ``the integrity of this program.'' That means that none of the public funds are wasted or used in an improper way, but it also means that the program's integrity is preserved to deliver the assistance that is needed for the many, many families that are playing by the rules and need a helping hand. And that's the only area we have difference in this regard as far as I personally am concerned.

The House has already spoken on this electronic benefits issue. I don't see any harm in the House speaking again this week or next week or next month--I don't see a great deal of gain from repassing it, but why not? But what I do see harm in is if the many, many people that are playing by the rules and need this assistance see their safety net shredded the way these same folks shredded the safety net last year when they did not renew the bipartisan TANF supplemental program that has been so important in poor States with large populations of poor people, like Texas.

There are families there, there are State programs there that are harmed by the unjustified refusal to extend that program. At least with what's left in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which we passed here as a freestanding bill in December with this provision in it, let's pass that entire bill. Hopefully, this message says little more than say that the House still feels today the same way that it felt 6 weeks ago.

That's fine, but let's get this entire Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program approved and in place so the States and the families that depend upon it will have it there.

I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

I yield back the balance of my time.

Is it just too much to ask that seniors that are struggling in a nursing home after a lifetime of work get a little economic security, that they get a little dignity? Is it too much to bring just a little peace of mind to a family that is burdened with a parent that is suffering from Alzheimer's or some other debilitating condition? Sadly, this does appear to be too much to ask from some here.

One year ago, the House Republican majority's first major action, once they gained control of Congress, was to repeal health insurance reform. At the time they did that, they said they were for ``repeal and replace.'' But the only replacement they offered for their repeal was a little flimsy 1\1/2\-page bill that I call ``the 12 platitudes.''

They proved to be only platitudes because during the intervening months, they've done nothing about long-term health care or any other kind of health care for the American people.

Today, they continue to deny Americans actual solutions to health care problems, and once again, they have a flimsy 1\1/2\ page bill. They don't have ``repeal and replace,'' they have ``repeal and deny.'' They're in a state of

denial that there is a problem with long-term care, and they continue to deny meaningful relief to families that are struggling with health care bills, and particularly, long-term health care bills.

There is a 75 percent chance that some American who reaches age 65 will find themselves in need of long-term care. Paying for that care can bankrupt a family and the children of a parent who needs that kind of care. An average cost for nursing home services, for example, of $70,000 can surely and quickly sink a lifetime of savings.

The CLASS Act is far from perfect. It needs to be changed. But instead of repealing it, we ought to be focusing on necessary changes. Where is the commitment to doing something about long-term care? There haven't even been hearings on how to resolve this problem.

There was a legendary Texas House Speaker of this body, Sam Rayburn, who said that it takes a master carpenter to build a barn but any mule, I think he said, can tear one down.

Well, it's time that we get together to build a solution for long- term health care, not just tear it down.

I thank the gentleman.

As a long-time member of the Budget Committee, I certainly think that having a budget resolution is a good idea. I think it is a matter of national importance. I don't see how anyone can really disagree with the resolution, although it seems to have been offered primarily to establish a setting for the Republican response to the State of the Union Address that we all look forward to hearing tonight.

It is important to understand what the budget resolution is and what it is not, and what difference it really makes if one hasn't been passed for 1,000 days, 3 or 4 years, or 3 or 4 weeks. The budget resolution is not the appropriations act. It is a statement of our values and of our priorities, and I think that it is important to try to get one passed every year.

But the most important practical consequence of passing a budget resolution is to establish the level of discretionary spending, that is, to establish the level of expenditures that can be made by the various Appropriations committees and by this Congress. It provides us a good opportunity to look at what the consequences of that spending are, to try to match it up to revenues, and not to engage in endless deficit spending.

But the practical effect of the resolution itself is to say to the Appropriations Committee here in the House and in the Senate how much discretionary spending will the Congress approve this year. So what happens when there is not a budget resolution? The Congress finds other ways to do the very same thing.

So, in fact, the Congress did not pass a budget resolution for fiscal year 2003, for fiscal year 2005, for fiscal year 2007; but that did not stop President Bush from signing appropriation bills that added billions of dollars to our national debt--along with his tax cuts for those at the top that also added immensely to our national debt. He signed those appropriation bills.

I don't know whether we went a thousand days or a year or two then without a budget resolution. It would have been better if we could have adopted one, but the budget resolution tends to be confused by some people with the appropriations that keep the Federal Government going. This is not the act that Republicans from time to time have threatened to shut down the government.

You can't threaten to shut down the government over the passage of a budget resolution. That has happened with some of our appropriation bills. It almost happened with the ceiling on debt for the Federal Government. It is also inaccurate, not only confusing, to mix the two; and it is inaccurate to say that this Congress has not acted to establish some discretionary spending limits, even though a budget resolution, as good as it would be to have one, has not been formally adopted.

We did, in fact, adopt last year the Budget Control Act. The Budget Control Act proposes to set discretionary expenditure limits, what this Congress will spend, not just for this year but for a 10-year period in an effort to try to get spending under control and bring us closer to getting our fiscal house in order, which is something we very much need to do.

I see today's resolution as restating the obvious, that a budget resolution is a good idea, but not adding really much to our attempt to achieve some balance in our budget. Indeed, the last debate here on the floor about instructing conferees and trying to move forward on the issues of unemployment, the job creation, and the payroll tax extension are much more on target than a resolution of this nature.

We do have some serious challenges and deadlines. We still have almost 5 million Americans that would lose their unemployment benefits this year if we don't have an extension. I'd focus on those and working with the President, rather than a resolution that accomplishes little.

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

I rise in reluctant support of this measure, asking for its approval, because without approval, Federal funding for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families will expire on New Year's Eve. My reluctance centers on the incomplete nature of this extension.

It's incomplete, first, in terms of time. In September, Republicans declined to extend this necessary funding for more than 3 months. Now they extend it only for another 9 months, assuring that during the height of the 2012 campaign season next year they'll have an opportunity to blame the poor for whatever questionable anecdote arises in the meantime.

This type of short-term extension at a time of a budgetary crisis in many of our States reduces the ability to plan and to reform. It assures that direct assistance to our most vulnerable neighbors will just barely hang on. It postpones any meaningful action on responding to the Census Bureau report that more Americans were poor in 2010 than at any recent time.

In my home county in the capital of the State of Texas, the percentage of children living in poverty grew from 18.3 percent in 2007 to 24.5 in 2010--almost one in every four children, in our area, impoverished.

And today's bill is incomplete in terms of coverage. An important part of the 1996 reform of the welfare law, a reform that I personally supported, an important part is omitted today, the TANF supplemental grants. These are funds that are allocated to help those States like Texas that were negatively affected by the Federal formula in place at the time.

Without any good explanation or justification, Republicans allowed this initiative to expire last summer, and they continue to do so today. This means that a State government in Texas that is largely indifferent to the needs of its poor citizens has even less capacity to respond to those needs. Because of this deliberate and unjustified omission, Texas loses $500 million; and together with 16 other States, they lose a total of $3 billion over the next decade. This is money that will not be there to assist struggling families and to promote work. Termination of these grants is really a breach of the agreement of 15 years ago as a part of welfare reform.

But as we pass this bill, a few points need to be noted that are positive in nature.

First is the one my colleague refers to as bipartisan legislation that I have worked on with Chairman Geoff Davis. It is designed to assure that Health and Human Services does have common data points so that we ferret out any waste and abuse among various programs and, at the same time, help eligible Americans to receive the assistance to which they are entitled. This has already been incorporated into the child welfare legislation that was also approved by our subcommittee on a bipartisan basis and has been signed into law.

A second provision that is described as ``program integrity'' certainly does sound good in speeches, and it probably does address a problem in Las Vegas and a few other areas that for speech purposes has been described as the so-called ``strip club loophole.'' I'm in favor of closing every loophole that takes public money that needs to go to needy children and diverts it for some other purpose, whether it's at a strip club or it is a pharmaceutical manufacturer who has milked Medicaid and Medicare for millions of dollars.

Earlier this week, we heard from TANF administrators across the country, Republicans and Democrats, questioning this provision, and we know that it is also the subject of a study by the Government Accountability Office. I think that we need to ensure no dollars are wasted here, and I certainly wouldn't let this newly added provision slow up a must-pass piece of legislation to assure that the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program is continued to next September.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished member of this subcommittee and the full committee, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

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

I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

I may have one additional speaker if the gentlelady makes it in time, but let me close on this note:

Mr. Speaker, at this time of year, we have largely a Norman Rockwell picture of American families gathered around the Christmas tables, with their turkeys and their gifts, and their Christmas trees are lit. That is the story of millions of American families, but it's not the story of many as well.

I've seen those families firsthand. I see them two doors down from my house in East Austin when they line up on a Saturday morning, in need of help, at the Olivet Baptist Helping Hand. I saw it last Saturday at the recreation center in southeast Austin, in Dove Springs, where parents were lined up for blocks to get their children one toy for Christmas. I've also seen it across the south and west sides of San Antonio--good families, hardworking people caught up in the worst recession since the Great Depression. They face great challenges, and our safety net in this country remains in tatters.

My concern is that this bill today does so little to address that tattered safety net, which is increasingly more hole than net. We see the statistics of homelessness for these families: 38 percent growth over 3 years of the recession. We see it in threadbare cupboards and church pantries and in food centers across the country. Yesterday we saw in a report in The New York Times that in 37 States families are worse off in terms of child care.

At this time, Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my colleague from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore), to discuss the challenges that are faced by some of our most vulnerable neighbors. I know she shares many of these concerns about the unmet needs of those families who won't be fortunate enough to look like a Norman Rockwell painting this Christmas.

I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.

While I think it would have been better to await the full report from the Government Accountability Office, I support those program integrity provisions.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I would just yield myself such time as I may consume to say that I am pleased that we are moving forward to extend this program, at least until the end of next September. But there remains much work to do.

Many of our neighbors are in great need at the present time. Many are supported by churches, community nonprofits, and the like. It is a valuable service at a time of charity at Christmas when we all care about those who are the least among us.

But just caring in that fashion is not sufficient, given the extent of the problem. We need a stronger safety net with reference to health care, child care, the support that is offered through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, and to help those--yes, pull them up by their

boots; but for those who lack bootstraps, assist them as well. That should be the goal of our vision as we address the needs of the many impoverished people in this country.

Unfortunately, poor people have the least voice in this Congress. Their voice is not heard to the extent that some of those who have vested interests here in limousines and lobbyists are heard. But we need to speak up for them. And this is one of those rare opportunities to be able to do so and to say that this Congress has acted; but it's acted in a modest, limited, incomplete, and inadequate way. We would not hold up that little bit of help, but there is so much more that needs to be done.

I yield back the balance of my time.