Floor Statements

Last week I had the immense pleasure of joining the folks at Fort Leavenworth for the Change of Command ceremony to welcome Lieutenant General David Perkins as the new commanding general of Fort Leavenworth, home of the prestigious Command and General Staff College.

It was fitting that General Perkins, a West Point grad, distinguished Iraq war commander and decorated career serviceman, took his post during Military Family Appreciation Month as his two children, Chad and Cassandra, both serve in the Army. There is no doubt that General Perkins, his wife, Ginger, and their two wonderful children exemplify what it means to be a military family.

I want to extend a warm welcome to General Perkins and my deepest thanks to departing General Robert Caslen, who has left Fort Leavenworth for his new post as Chief of Security Cooperation in Iraq.

Thank you both for your service to the Fort Leavenworth community and to our country.

I thank the gentlelady for yielding, and I thank you for your leadership on this important issue.

As a CPA who spent nearly two decades helping American families chart their way toward fiscal responsibility, I can tell you that if you want to get serious about getting your finances in order, then the very first thing you have to do is balance your budget. If we want to see our economy moving again, if we want to see the job market growing again, if we want to ensure that we remain the most powerful and prosperous nation on Earth, then we must balance our budget.

Yet if we've learned one thing over the past few years, it's that we can't expect Washington to balance its books on its own. To really force the tough spending decisions and to ensure we spend our money as efficiently as possible, we must require that Washington balance its budget. To put it frankly, America needs a balanced budget amendment. We came close 16 years ago; but since then, our national debt has grown from $4 trillion to $15 trillion. We're facing a crisis. We need a balanced budget amendment, and we need it now.

But if you don't want to take my word for it, you can take the word of our colleagues from across the aisle who, in the past few years, have said things like this: ``The issue of balancing the budget is not a conservative or liberal one, nor is it an easy one; but it is an essential one.'' Or again, I quote a friend from across the aisle, ``I'm proud to be part of a coalition that is actively working to begin putting our country back on secure economic footing. The balanced budget amendment won't achieve that all by itself, but it will help ensure that we don't repeat the mistakes that helped create our current situation.'' And finally, again, I quote a friend from across the aisle, ``This amendment would send a strong signal to the financial markets, U.S. businesses, and the American people that we are serious about stabilizing our economy for the long term.'' And what did the Democrat leadership say about this very issue in past years? They said they would welcome it. But what are they saying today? No. They're whipping against it.

It is time for our friends across the aisle to put our children before their politics. Stop fighting this landmark achievement out of sheer partisan spite, and do the right things. We all need to support this measure not because it's easy, but we need to show the courage because this is what matters. So let's come together to take a stand for fiscal responsibility, show our kids and grandkids that we cherish their future, and pass the balanced budget amendment.

I thank the gentlelady from Missouri for yielding, and I appreciate my fellow Republican women stepping up this evening to have an honest fact-based discussion about one of our Nation's most valued resources--our senior citizens.

As I travel through Kansas each week, I always hear from folks who have had to tighten their belts over the last few years, and the overwhelming message I hear is that Kansans want their government to do the same, and seniors are no different.

While special interest groups, many in the media, and several of our colleagues across the aisle like to paint our Nation's seniors as weak, terrified of budget cuts, and beholden to the Federal Government for financial security, seniors in Kansas know better. These are strong men and women who have seen our Nation through a world war, cultural upheaval, and cyclical financial turmoil. They have always stayed true to the ideals and principles that make this country great. They have always been willing to make the necessary sacrifices to better their lives and those of their children and grandchildren, and they continue to display that same commitment during our current struggles.

But you know what? Just because our seniors are willing to sacrifice does not mean we should continue to demand it. It's time we, the beneficiaries of their hard work and sacrifice, stopped asking for more and allowed our seniors to have the security and certainty that they have earned through decade upon decade of hard work.

That's why I'm pleased to have supported the Republican House budget earlier this year that will save a Medicare system that could be bankrupt in 8 years if we do nothing, and it makes a plan to save Social Security, which isn't far behind. Our plan saves these programs for the next generation while preserving 100 percent of the benefits for those Americans currently in or near retirement.

I'll continue to fight to ensure seniors don't see any cuts in their benefits, like the cuts that were provided for under the President's health care law, which cuts Medicare by $500 billion and allows a board of bureaucrats to begin rationing care. We will, instead, continue to work to protect and strengthen these important programs.

The economic turmoil over the last several years has impacted all of us, including our seniors. Our Nation's senior citizens, the Greatest Generation, worked their entire lives to make this country what it is today. Keeping the promises made to them over the years must be a priority of this Congress and of this Nation.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for yielding, and thank you for your leadership in this area.

It has been nearly 5 years since we signed our trade agreement with Colombia, and although I'm disappointed that it took this long, I am so pleased we will be ratifying this agreement today. Once this trade deal has passed, we will finally have what our Trade Subcommittee chairman Representative Brady has correctly labeled a ``Sell American'' agreement with the third-largest economy in South and Central America.

Exports of American goods will increase by more than $1 billion, and the ITC expects our stagnant GDP will get a boost of at least $2.5 billion, not to mention Kansas wheat farmers can look forward to an even larger share of the Colombian grain market.

It's been 5 years in the making, but we are finally here. I urge my colleagues to come together and support the pro-jobs, pro-growth Colombian Free Trade Agreement.

I thank the chairman for his leadership on this important issue and for yielding time.

Madam Speaker, many Americans believe that Congress can't agree on anything; but if there is one thing Washington can agree on, it's that we're in a jobs crisis and that we should be doing everything in our power to create an environment that encourages the private sector to thrive and create jobs.

If we are looking to make a dramatic and immediate impact on our job market, we need to look no further than the South Korean trade agreement. Ratifying this deal will secure at least 70,000 American jobs as we increase our exports by more than $10 billion, adding $12 billion to our GDP. This agreement also means jobs for Kansas. Our agriculture sector is looking at a multibillion-dollar expansion in our processed foods, chemical and transportation industries, which do well over $150 million of business with South Korea each year, and are prime to expand further under this deal.

If our focus is on jobs, jobs, jobs, then let's pass this South Korean trade agreement, and let's get America back to work.

I thank the chair for yielding.

Three and a half trade deals that we have taken up today have bipartisan support, the three pending free trade agreements and the GSP extension within this bill. Both parties in both Chambers agree that these important trade pacts will grow our economy, create jobs, and make America more competitive in the global marketplace.

Sadly, however, the bipartisan, bicameral approval of the merits of these trade deals did not keep the Washington gamesmanship at bay. For nearly 10 months, as they pushed for an expanded and enlarged TAA program, our colleagues in the Senate allowed the GSP to lapse, holding American jobs hostage until their political allies could be pacified with a sufficient payoff.

This delay wasn't simply an intellectual exercise either. It hurt real businesses, real families, and cost us real jobs in my home State of Kansas. Take the Berger Company in Atchison, Kansas. The family- owned Berger Company manufactures leather goods for sale across the United States. But due to the increased cost of materials caused by the lapse in the GSP, Berger has lost customers to foreign competitors like China, causing lower profit and placing real Kansas jobs at risk.

I'm voting for this bill because we need GSP to be reauthorized immediately, but I'm extremely disappointed that Senate Democrats have again risked the continued lapse of this important program all for a TAA program that does not work.

The results of Washington brinksmanship have real life impacts across this country. So while I'm hopeful that we will finally extend the GSP package today, I'm disappointed Washington political games made our small businesses, like the Berger Company, wait so long.

Mr. Chair, to spur job creation in this country, we must remove burdensome regulations stifling our job creators.

The EPA's Maximum Achievable Control Technology or MACT rule is set to crush our cement manufacturers.

Eastern Kansas has three cement manufacturers who employ thousands. I recently toured plants at Monarch Cement in Humboldt, Ashgrove Cement in Iola and LaFarge Cement in Fredonia, and heard a similar story from all three.

They have the revenue stream and the desire to hire more Kansans, but the cost of complying with Government regulations, like the cement MACT, restrict their ability to do so.

The EPA shouldn't be implementing regulations that do more economic damage than they achieve in environmental good.

I hope the EPA will take this opportunity to reform this rule and be part of the solution rather than the problem.

Let's end over regulation and get Americans back to work.

Mr. Speaker, to spur job creation in this country, we must remove burdensome regulations stifling our job creators. The EPA's Maximum Achievable Control Technology, or MACT rule, is set to crush our cement manufacturers.

Eastern Kansas has three cement manufacturers who employ thousands. I recently toured plants at Monarch Cement in Humboldt, Ashgrove Cement in Chanute, and LaFarge Cement in Fredonia, and heard a similar story from all three. They have the revenue stream and the desire to hire more Kansans, but the cost of complying with government regulations, like the cement MACT, restrict their ability to do so.

The EPA shouldn't be implementing regulations that do more economic damage than they achieve in environmental good. I hope the EPA will take this opportunity to reform their rules and be part of the solution rather than the problem. Let's end overregulation and get Americans back to work.

I would like to thank the honorable chairman from Texas for his leadership on the issue of trade and for yielding.

In today's global economy, it's essential that we make every reasonable effort to open foreign markets to American products. Yet today, as our country is struggling with a lackluster GDP and stagnant job creation, grocery stores in South Korea are signing long-term agreements with beef producers from Europe, not America.

Why European, not American? Well, the reason is simple. While this administration has dragged its feet in the approval process of our own agreement, the European Union was able to enact their agreement with South Korea before the United States could take up our own. Therefore, the South Koreans are able to purchase European goods--most notably, agriculture products--at a much lower rate and prices because, unlike American goods and commodities, they do not have costly tariffs attached to them. The same is true with American goods and agriculture products in Colombia and Panama.

In the first 2 weeks after the EU-South Korea agreement was passed, European exports to South Korea rose by 16 percent. We are losing market share and American businesses are losing their competitive edge all as a result of Washington's inability to pass these essential agreements that supposedly have bipartisan support.

In fact, since Canada signed their free trade agreement with Colombia, the U.S. has lost nearly 30 percent of our market share in wheat exports to Colombia. Losing 30 percent of our market share in a key commodity like wheat has a tremendous impact on a small State like Kansas.

When it comes down to it, this isn't about ideologies. This is about American jobs. President Obama has said it himself, these agreements can create 250,000 American jobs, and yet he has sat on them for nearly 3 years. These agreements have the ability to immediately create thousands of jobs, open new markets for farmers, ranchers, and manufacturers, and play a pivotal role in growing our economy out of this stagnancy.

I would like to thank the President for ending his stall tactics and finally sending these agreements to us today, and I implore my colleagues in Congress to work with us to swiftly pass these vital trade agreements. Let's have beef producers from Kansas or even Texas, Mr. Chairman, signing long-term deals with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama, not Europe or Canada.

Let's finally back up this rhetoric with action. Let's get Americans back to work.

Mr. Speaker, I am so pleased this morning to welcome a fellow Kansan to the halls of Congress. Pastor Clark Johnson is here today serving as Guest Chaplain to the House of Representatives, and I have to say it was a nice start to the day with a prayer infused with a little Kansas spirit.

Pastor Johnson joined the Topeka community in 1989 when he accepted the call to become senior pastor of the First Southern Baptist Church in Topeka, and over the last 20 years, Pastor Johnson has built a true family at his church with members steadfastly working together for the greater glory of Our Lord and Saviour.

Kansas and Topeka are so blessed to have Pastor Johnson in our community, and the House is especially blessed to have Pastor Johnson with us today. I want to thank him for his service, and wish him well for many years to come.

Where is the President's plan?

If I had a nickel for every time I have heard that question, we would be much closer to resolving our debt crisis. But the President and my friends across the aisle have still not answered the most important question of all: Where is their plan for job creation?

House Republicans have a plan. At the core of this plan is passing the three pending trade agreements. These trade agreements have the ability to immediately create thousands of jobs, open new markets for our farmers, ranchers, and manufacturers, and to play a pivotal role in growing our economy. Yet, the President continues to stand in the way.

These agreements create jobs, period.

So let's pass these agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama. Let's reauthorize the GSP and the Andean Trade Preference Act and finally fulfill our duty to the American people.

I thank the gentlelady from North Carolina for yielding.

I am Lynn Jenkins from the Second Congressional District of Kansas, a proud Republican woman, a mother of two, and a CPA with nearly 20 years of experience helping small businesses, major corporations, and American families budget and return to solvency.

You see a family up there in the picture. I have spent nearly two decades working with families across the dinner table to help them chart their way back to prosperity and fiscal responsibility, and I can tell you that if you want to be serious about balancing your budget and returning to solvency, you have to look at both sides of the ledger; you have to look at what you're taking in and what you're spending, and you have to look at your assets and your liabilities.

When it comes to spending and liabilities, it seems that in this town there is some consensus that Washington does indeed have a spending problem. The time to rein in this out-of-control wasteful Washington spending and debt is long overdue. That is why the House has passed a responsible, fact-based budget that will curb Federal spending by more than $6 trillion over the next 10 years, and why just yesterday we passed a measure to again cut spending by trillions of dollars and cap any future spending as part of a deal to grant the President his request to raise the debt ceiling.

But it is our assets that make our country truly blessed because our greatest asset is the strength, the drive, and the ingenuity of the American worker and the American business owner. That is why we need to enhance this asset and therefore increase our revenues in a way that grows the economy. And it is not to hit our small businesses with tax increases or more regulation, but rather to institute these pro-growth policies like House Republicans are doing in our efforts to reform the Tax Code to make it fairer and flatter, to increase exports by finally passing the three pending trade agreements, increase our energy production, and remove the burdensome regulations that are stifling growth and hiring.

You simply can't tax your way out of this mess and into a robust economy; you have to grow your way out of it. You don't have to take my word for it. The President himself agreed with me just last year when he said raising taxes would ``just take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.''

Balancing our budget is critical to our future, just as it is critical to every business and family across this great country. So it's my hope that the establishment here in Washington can finally see the error of its ways, make real cuts to this out-of-control spending binge, put hard caps on the attempts to increase spending in the future, and establish some pro-growth policies that will lift us out of this stagnant economy and into the prosperity the American people deserve.

Madam Speaker, the question on everyone's mind in this Nation today is: where are the jobs? And, more importantly, what is Washington going to do about it?

Well, Republicans have a plan. We want to open new markets to exports, make the Tax Code fairer and flatter, rein in regulations, and reform government spending.

But when we look across the negotiation table, what do we see? Nothing. We hear a lot of speeches and that a lot of things are on the table; but, of course, there is no plan from the Democrats. No plan to read, to score, or to negotiate.

To this point, the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently said: ``We don't estimate speeches.''

So, Mr. President, where is your plan?

I implore my friends across the aisle and across the Rotunda to get off the stump. Give us a plan. Compile those nice words into legislation so we can get Americans back to work.

I thank my friend from Washington for yielding me some time.

My name is Lynn Jenkins, and I am a Republican woman in my second term from the Second District in Kansas. Before entering public office, I worked for over a dozen years in public accounting as a certified public accountant helping businesses and individuals with their tax planning, their tax compliance, and I did that so they could focus on what they did best and that was create jobs and be successful for their local economies.

I originally ran for office for the House of Representatives in Kansas, because I was frustrated by the burdens the State government placed on my clients and the families. As a member of both the Kansas House and the Senate and then as State treasurer for a term and a half, I was pleased to help Kansas work to secure sound economic policies.

But several years ago, I became increasingly concerned about the policies of the Federal Government and how they were holding back our citizens and our job creators. So I ran for Congress, and I am honored to be here this evening with my fellow Republican women to highlight the Republicans' plan to promote job growth.

Over 2 years ago when I came to Washington, my goal was to pass policies to stimulate the flagging economy and get us back on firm financial footing. Unfortunately, one of the first things the Democrat majority did at that time was to ignore our proposals for economic growth and choose instead to pass a stimulus package that we Republicans opposed. And just as we predicted at the time, it has failed.

Let's look at some of the facts. The White House advisers said that passing the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8 percent. The unemployment rate is currently over 9 percent, and it has been above 8 percent for more than 2 years. I've got a visual aid here that shows a new study by economists from the University of Western Ontario and Ohio State University found that the President's failed stimulus, the largest stimulus in American history, destroyed or forestalled roughly 1 million private sector jobs. Taxpayers will end up paying $1.16 trillion for all the private sector jobs lost or forestalled by the Democrats' stimulus.

The facts tell us the total cost of the Democrats' stimulus, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, to be over $820 billion, and interest on the debt for the bill will be nearly $350 billion for over a $1 trillion pricetag. The number of net jobs the economy has shed since the Democrat stimulus was signed into law is reaching almost 2 million. In the last 12 months, entrepreneurs have started up the fewest new U.S. businesses in more than a decade. The national debt has increased by more than $3.5 trillion.

The Federal Government shouldn't be in the business of job creation. We should be focusing our efforts here in Congress on putting policies in place that encourage private sector job growth, and that's why I'm so proud of the Republicans and their job proposal that's before us. Included in the proposal are many reforms. Some include an opportunity to fix the Tax Code to help job creators; spur investment; create more American jobs by streamlining our Tax Code; by increasing competitiveness for American manufacturers; by reining in this unsustainable debt and start living within our means; addressing the issue of regulatory overreach; and encouraging entrepreneurship and growth.

So, tonight, along with my fellow Republican women from across this Nation, I'm calling upon our President and the Democrat majority in the Senate to work with us. Help us pass our jobs plan so we can get Americans back to work.

Madam Speaker, unemployment is over 9 percent. Americans are struggling. They need relief. They need certainty. They need jobs.

House Republicans have passed legislation aimed at removing barriers to job creation, including bills to rein in wasteful spending, end unnecessary regulation, decrease uncertainty, and ensure the survival of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

One of the many pieces of legislation passed to spur job growth was our budget. My colleagues across the aisle can critique our plans, but it is unacceptable to demagogue it without having a plan of their own.

Law requires that Congress pass a budget; yet Democrats shirked that responsibility last year when they held the majority, and they have yet to propose an alternative this year. We have heard a few speeches but no honest plan that can be read, scored, compared, and negotiated.

The American people need jobs. Rather than engaging in demagoguery, I ask my colleagues to bring a plan to the negotiating table. Let's do our job so more Americans have one.