Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating Tommy Stephenson upon his retirement from the United States Postal Service.

Mr. Stephenson has serviced the same route for over 30 years, becoming an important part of the community in Southern Madison County, Northern Hardeman County, and Western Chester County, Tennessee. Over three generations of West Tennessee families have come to know and love Mr. Tommy. The humble spirit and cheerful whistle he brought to work each and every day has touched these families in many ways.

Most inspiring to me is the fact that Mr. Stephenson has endured a physical disability that limits the use of his right hand, yet he has always been able to adapt to the many changes these past thirty years. The type of dependability and dedication he has brought to his work is rare, indeed, and we honor him for it.

Please join me in celebrating Mr. Stephenson's achievement, and wishing him well upon his retirement.

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow the President is going to be a stone's throw from the Tennessee border when he is out on the trail speaking with people. And I have no doubt he is going to have something to say about health care and say we can't put off health care reform any longer. And most people agree that we need some smart reforms on cost, on access, on insurance liability and on insurance accountability. I would also say that we need to heed the warnings that will come from some of the public option experiments that have taken place in our States.

My home State of Tennessee is home to one of these public option experiments. And our governor, a Democrat, has even called this a disaster. Now, 15 years after that experiment being put in place, our State is still digging out from a system that went horribly wrong, and it is a system that rationed care and cost billions more each year than anticipated.

I have asked the administration repeatedly for assurances if they understand what went wrong. I am still waiting. Let's learn these lessons from TennCare.

I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, as I have said so often this year, I rise in defense of the American taxpayer. And once again, we find ourselves on the floor considering still more Federal spending. That spending hasn't brought back the millions of lost jobs. Our constituents are still asking, Where are the jobs? And as my colleagues have promised me, they're going to continue to ask that question.

It hasn't promoted the economic growth that is so desperately needed. What it has done, it has produced a deficit that will likely top $2 trillion this year. It has contributed to the largest Federal debt this Nation has ever known. That is the debt that my grandchildren will have to pay in missed opportunities and needless sacrifices.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment applies a 5 percent cut to this appropriations bill. That is a 5 percent cut to programs whose spending has increased by 146 percent over the last 3 years. That is 146 percent over the last 3 years. That is a 5 percent cut to programs that have already gotten $62 billion this year from the stimulus.

Mr. Chairman, I will shortly yield my time, but before I do, let me preview what I am sure my distinguished colleague will say in objecting to my amendment. He is likely to suggest that across-the-board cuts are bad because they do all the careful bipartisan work that is necessary to produce a good bill. And we know that everyone works hard on this legislation. We appreciate that. But we know there is

more work that can be done in perfecting these bills.

He'll tell us that this bill has made tough choices already this year, and respectfully, I disagree. How many hard choices have we really made as a body when we have seen spending more than $14 billion than was spent last year?

My esteemed colleagues may go through a litany of vital programs that would be destroyed by a 5 percent across-the-board cut. What my colleagues don't many times mention is that a 5 percent cut would allow each of the programs to still grow by 11 percent from last year's funding. And probably what we will hear is that this committee isn't really spending that much more, if you don't count the stimulus spending.

Now, all of these are things that we have heard this year during these 5 percent debates, but, Mr. Chairman, I will say I do count that stimulus spending. I count every penny we're spending because, indeed, it is my grandchildren who are some day going to have to pay this money back.

And with that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I will simply point out that we have to realize that this is taxpayer money, not government money, and what we are hearing from the taxpayers of this great Nation is that spending is out of control. A $1 trillion deficit is too much. A Federal debt that is at record levels is too much spending. And taxpayers are telling us they are tired of us spending money on programs they don't want. And it's, as one of my constituents has said, that we are spending money she hasn't made on programs that she doesn't want. And they are right to speak out to us about this.

I will also point out that our States, which function under balanced budget amendments, are great labs of experimentation in State budgeting. Our States make across-the-board cuts. In making an across- the-board cut in this appropriations bill, you would still have 11 percent growth in these programs. And that is significant because in the last 3 years, as I said, this funding has increased 146 percent.

You have programs in this bill that received 62 billion additional dollars through the stimulus, and a 5 percent cut would save the American taxpayer $3.44 billion. That would be the savings that is there.

We all know as we budget at the Federal level we use baseline budgeting, and a good thing about making across-the-board cuts is that it helps reset that baseline. And what we have seen with our Federal budget, as we have had the additional spending with our stimulus, with these additional appropriations, is those numbers are rising. And yes, indeed, the taxpayers are reminding us they are going through the roof and they are tired of that. They want the spending, the out-of-control spending to stop.

Every year, taxpayers sit down and they write out their check to Uncle Sam, and when they send that check in, they know they're delaying their priorities.

I urge support of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to ask my colleagues to join me in honoring the selfless service Jack Nyiri has performed throughout his lifetime for the Boy Scouts of America, specifically the Cub Scout organization.

The aims of Scouting--citizenship training, character development, and personal fitness--are so very important to developing the next generation of American citizens. But these aims cannot be accomplished without the dedication of individuals like Jack Nyiri, who are willing to part with their own time and effort for the good of our children.

After participating in both Cub and Boy Scouting in Cleveland, Ohio, Mr. Nyiri dove into leading Cub Scout packs and participating in the administration of scouting across at least three different states. His steadfastness and excellence has been recognized through many of scouting's highest awards, as he has more than lived up to the Cub Scout motto--``Do your best.''

Nowhere is Mr. Nyiri's dedication more tangible than in the success of Bus Scout Pack 96, based in Nashville, Tennessee. His leadership has built this pack into a strong and vibrant organization, and the scouts and parents of Pack 96 have expressed to me their extreme gratefulness for Mr. Nyiri's tenure as the Pack Leader.

Madam Speaker, I congratulate Jack and ask my colleagues to join me in celebrating his accomplishments.

Mr. Speaker, I want to say thank you to our colleagues across the aisle for bringing forward a PAYGO statute.

I will tell you, it is of concern to me, though, that the statute, the way this is written, the way they're approaching PAYGO could lead to tax increases because what we are not seeing from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle is a willingness to reduce spending. And we know if you're going to have an effective PAYGO policy, that you have to be able to reduce what you're spending. That is a requirement.

On every appropriations bill that we have, I file a 5 percent, across-the-board reduction amendment for a spending cut. The reason I do that is because what we have learned from our States, what I learned as being a State Senator is that across-the-board spending reductions work. They work. They reduce what you are going to lay out, the amount of money that you are going to spend.

So, let's do this in a bipartisan way. Let's agree that we are actually going to reduce spending. Let's agree that we're going to have PAYGO enforcement, that we're not going to cry ``emergency'' every time we have a Katrina, every time we have a tsunami, every time we have a need for extra spending, that we don't go call for a special appropriation that allows us to circumvent the PAYGO rules. And let's be certain that we put all that spending on the table, that we put it all on the table, and that we agree we're going to reduce what we are going to spend.

What we have seen is the PAYGO rule, the way it is written, the way they've put it in place, has led to a deficit that has gone from $162 billion to over $1 trillion. That's over a 1,000 percent increase. And I think that this body would be well-served to make that 5 percent haircut; set a nickel aside out of every dollar that is going to be spent for our children and our grandchildren, their future and opportunity.

Mr. Speaker, the health care proposals that are before us have been tried before. Public option was tried in my home State of Tennessee under a plan called TennCare. For more than 10 years, the legislature and three Governors tried to make it work. It has been less than successful. But what has happened is that a program that was supposed to have saved millions, tens of millions of dollars, has never saved one nickel. It also has restricted access. It has driven up the cost of private health insurance, and it has nearly bankrupted the State.

Tennesseeans know that rushing to reform health care and doing that wrong is a very expensive process. We all know that costs and access of health care needs to be addressed. No one seriously believes that any of these plans before this House right now is going to do that.

Tennesseeans know the cost of rushing and getting it wrong, and the American people are figuring it out because they have seen the majority rush a stimulus, an omnibus, a housingus and a porkulus that has left the American people saying, where are the jobs? And they do not want that to happen in health care.

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

Mr. Chairman, again, today I rise in defense of the American taxpayer.

Mr. Chairman, we were greeted this week with the unfortunate news that we have already spent $1 trillion more than we have taken in in this fiscal year. The projections for next year are no better. Many think they're even worse. And yet, here we find ourselves on the floor again, one more day, one more ``approps'' bill, one more debate about spend, spend, spend.

Everybody in this Chamber knows that I am the grandmother of two precious little boys. Their future is so special and precious to me. And because of that, every day when I come to work, I think about the ramifications of the votes that I take and what it is going to do to them. And every day, I come down here, and what I try to do is slow the growth of government spending. It is completely out of control. It is about to bankrupt this Nation, and it is costing us jobs, jobs, jobs. And I do that because my grandsons already, at the age of 14 months and 1 month, they already owe $70,000 to Uncle Sam. The debt that we run up here will be paid in their denied opportunities of tomorrow. I just can't run up that debt with a clear conscience, and I really don't think that, if my colleagues stopped to think about it, that they would want to be running up that type of debt either.

That is especially true when we consider the funding for the programs that are before us today, because that funding has risen over 52 percent in the past 3 years. These same programs have already received $7 billion this year in stimulus funding. And yet, we propose another 6.4 percent increase, another $1.5 billion increase more than last year. That will include a new $5 million for a program called Youth Services. When I saw that, I thought, my goodness. I wonder how our youth will end up servicing the massive debt that we are leaving them to handle.

My 5 percent across-the-board cut will save the taxpayers $1.2 billion. My friends on the other side of the aisle will, no doubt, rise in opposition to this bill, and they're going to tell their constituents how hard they've worked in committee, how responsible the bill is. And as one of my constituents said, it must be mighty hard work to spend a billion dollars an hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, which is exactly what is happening in Congress.

I just don't buy the lines about hard work anymore, and neither does the American taxpayer. How hard can we be working? How many hard choices can possibly be being made by Members of this Chamber when every year we spend more and more and more.

My colleagues may say that they aren't increasing funding by all that much, if you don't count the stimulus money, and you don't count the special appropriations. But we have already spent that money on programs. And I do count that money, and I count it because the ones who are going to have to pay that back are our children and our grandchildren.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman across the aisle from me may offer a series of programs that his party claims are just too vital to be cut. And I would challenge him to take that list to his constituents, to lots of grandmoms like me, and just ask them if they agree.

I would concede that yes, indeed we do have critical programs that need to be funded. I would simply suggest that, in this economy, when people are losing their jobs, when businesses are struggling, with a $1 trillion deficit already on the books for this year, that we consider reducing by 5 percent the amount of increase that is before us today.

And so now, so that my colleagues can dazzle me with their Washington-style math, I will reserve the balance of my time.

What we are saying is save a nickel out of a dollar. A nickel out of a dollar, out of the amount of increase that is being given.

All of these programs sound great, but may I remind my colleagues, this administration has piled up more debt, more debt than every previous administration from George Washington to George Bush. You must have liked the deficit spending so much that you're doing more and more and more and more of it.

There are some of us that have come to this floor repeatedly. Budgets and appropriations should be about priorities.

I encourage a ``yes'' vote on my amendment.

Mr. Chairman, while I support the Boren amendment, I do rise in opposition to the manager's amendment and to some provisions that are there.

It strikes me that the manager's amendment results in an earmark for the Big Three automakers. What it does is to stipulate that the alternative fuel cars have to be bought from them. What it does is to ignore the many other American citizens and taxpayers

who produce American-made passenger vehicles in this Nation, but they are manufacturers that are not the Big Three.

I view this as being something that is bad policy. It is bad environmental policy. It is bad appropriations policy. It is bad economic policy. There are 209 vehicles, Alternative Fuel Vehicles, that are going to be purchased to go into these different agencies as stipulated in this bill. The way this manager's amendment is written, it is an earmark for the Big Three, which have already received billions of bailout money.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today on behalf of the American taxpayer to continue my push to rein in Federal spending by just 5 percent.

As with the other appropriations bills that my colleagues and I have attempted to amend this year, this proposal would enforce a 5 percent across-the-board cut to the Energy and Water appropriations bill. My amendment would save the taxpayer $1.7 billion and reset Energy and Water spending levels for the next budget.

Spending on Energy and Water programs has increased by, get this, 183 percent over the past 3 years. Under the majority's control, spending has increased 183 percent. The very programs being funded on the House floor this afternoon have already received $51 billion in stimulus funding and $7 billion in supplemental funding this year, this one year.

This Congress has already spent more than $1 trillion than we have taken in. This trillion-dollar deficit is the largest in American history. In my opinion, this deficit represents the height of fiscal irresponsibility and is absolutely unconscionable. On top of it, many of my colleagues are proposing another $1 trillion in government-run health care spending.

Every day we are laying more and more debt on the backs of our children and grandchildren. I ask my colleagues: How do we expect these children and grandchildren, how do I expect my grandsons to pay for college or a first home or start a business when they already owe $70,000 to the Federal Government?

Mr. Chairman, we have to realize debt incurred is opportunity denied. My constituents keep telling me, We are tired of the government spending money we have not made yet on programs we don't want.

Through this appropriations cycle, I have intended to rein in this deficit by cutting spending. And today, again, I will ask the bureaucrats in Washington and their patrons in Congress to trim a nickel from every dollar that they are going to spend.

As our deficit and our debt grow to historic and dangerous proportions, it is more urgent than ever that we take action and bring spending under control.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I would remind my good colleagues that this is not Federal Government money. This is taxpayer money. And every year on April 15, the taxpayers send their portion to the Federal Government, and they charge us with looking out after that money. Many times they set aside hopes, dreams and college educations. They don't get to pursue their priorities because they have to send the money to Washington.

I find it absolutely incomprehensible that this body is not willing to turn to the bureaucrats that line all of these streets and these granite buildings and say, save a nickel out of the dollar. Allow our children and grandchildren to have opportunities. We have to realize, as I said, debt incurred today is opportunity denied for these children and grandchildren. I have heard all those arguments before.

When I was in the State senate in Tennessee, they had this grandiose health care plan called TennCare. Oh, it was going to save all this money. It was a public option. It was the test case for public option. It nearly bankrupted the State. When I offered an amendment to make across-the-board cuts, oh, those are draconian, those are indiscriminate. It is going to shut government down.

Well, guess what? They never took the cuts that we had. But when a Democrat Governor came in and he was faced with seemingly insurmountable odds on balancing a budget because we have an amendment, he made 9 percent across-the-board cuts.

We need to do this. We need to make the hard choices of where we are going to spend this money. You can't say, well, when you exclude this from the stimulus, and when you exclude this amount of money, when you exclude this $51 billion from stimulus and this $7 billion from supplemental, then it is only this. Well, guess what? That money is already spent. You spent the money. So unless they pay it all back, you can't exclude it. So your fuzzy math doesn't add up. It doesn't add up. You have already spent that money.

The person that is being undercut is the American taxpayer. And it is being done by the selfishness and by the greed of those who refuse to say ``no'' to a growing, out-of-control Federal bureaucracy.

I think it is time that we get some backbone on this spending issue. Stop the out-of-control deficit. Stop the out-of-control debt. Vote for the amendment and ``no'' on the debt.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Well, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Dr. Roe is exactly right. He was a physician practicing medicine or trying to practice medicine under the impact of TennCare. I was a legislator trying to figure out how to pay for this as a member of the Tennessee State Senate.

That's one of the interesting things. You know, Tennessee's TennCare program was put in place in 1994 as the test case for public option, government-funded, government-delivered health care. The interesting thing now is the White House doesn't want to talk about it because it is an experiment that was not successful. It failed. Even our Democrat Governor has said it has been a disaster.

Yes. And one of the things we need to realize is this. TennCare was put in place as an executive order program of the Office of the Governor. It was an 1115 waiver from CMS. The Statehouse and the State Senate got the bill of paying for it.

What happened after about 5 years of this program being in place, and you had consent decrees and court orders, you had companies that were dropping insurance, 55 percent of the enrollees on the program were people that were not supposed to be there. They had previously had insurance.

And you had a program that was ensuring or covering--gold-plated program covering 25 percent of the State's residents. Then the cost starts to balloon. You see cost shifting taking place onto those who have private insurance. You see restricted access by doctors and hospitals because they're not being paid by the program, because there's not enough money to go around, and the cost of the program goes to the point that they are actually absorbing every single new revenue dollar that is coming into the State of Tennessee, and ends up being 36 percent of the State's budget.

I'll gladly yield.

Costs skyrocketed. And we saw the costs go up every single year. As Dr. Roe can tell you, having been a physician trying to handle this issue, every single year the costs went up on the public option, the access was restricted, the quality of care was diminished, and those with private insurance saw their rates go up 10 percent, 15 percent.

I thank you. I will give a brief answer to that and then I know Dr. Roe will also want to comment on it. It's so wonderful that we can talk from the perspective of a State senator who was charged with holding that program accountable, even though it was set up without the permission, without the permission of either the Statehouse or the State senate in the State of Tennessee. And Dr. Roe was charged with keeping his oath and making certain that he was providing care to those that were in his care.

But what we saw, again, was the cost shifting that was taking place, the cost of the insurance to those in the private markets going through the roof.

I have employers in my State senate district and now in my congressional district who have seen, over a 3-year period of time, their health insurance cost go up 100 percent. We also saw delayed care. And as the gentleman from Arizona knows, delayed care might as well be denied care.

I do yield.

I thank you. What we see in this stack of the bill, the 1,100 pages that are there in that bill, 1,683 times it gives you the directive of you ``shall do,'' individuals ``shall do'' this. Now let me explain what this means. When you are a mother, many times you will tell your children, well, you can go out and play if you want to or you can do this if you want to. But when you really want to make a point, you say, ``you are going to go to time out'' or ``you are going to go to this corner'' or ``you are going to do your homework, no question, no options.''

In legislative parlance, that is what ``shall'' means. You have to do this.

Now, 47 times it uses the word ``must.'' You must do this and that. And 495 times it uses the word ``require.'' All of these are new mandates on the American people.

To make it worse, 172 times it talks about taxes, taxpayer, taxable activity, 172 times, and 99 times it uses ``penalties.''

The Democrats have become the party of punishment, and they are going to punish Americans severely in this health care bill.

And to the gentleman from Georgia, I loved the fact that he talked about the taxes. That portion that he so beautifully articulated, would create $300 billion in new revenue for the government, which means taxes out of your pocket that you're taking out of your pocket and handing to the tax man; $300 billion. Even the prices----

You're exactly right. And what the gentleman has is one small portion of that bill.

And also, I would add, before I yield back, that his own economic advisor from--the President's economic advisor estimates that that amount of taxes and this legislation would cost us 4.7 million new jobs.

And I yield back.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to ask my colleagues to join me in honoring the 80th birthday of one of Tennessee's finest citizens, Mr. Albert McCall, Sr., of Carthage, Tennessee.

Born and raised in Smith County, Tennessee, Mr. McCall earned two degrees--a bachelor's at Tennessee Polytechnic Institute and a master's at the University of Missouri--before serving as an Army Artillery Officer and in the dangerous position of a forward observer during the Korean war.

After returning home from the war, he married Miss Virginia Olive Doran in 1955 and began working in the family business, DT McCall and Sons, founded by his father and still a vital business and significant employer in Tennessee some 100 years later.

Mr. McCall has two fine children, Albert McCall II and Menda Elizabeth McCall Holmes, and four grandchildren: Alex, Kate, Monica and Derek. He is a member of the First Baptist Church in Carthage and has been active in civic affairs for many years across Tennessee. His leadership has been crucial to the success of our State, and I am humbly grateful to him for the many years of hard work and sacrifice he has provided.

Madam Speaker, I congratulate Albert on a life well-lived and ask my colleagues to join me in celebrating his past, present, and future accomplishments.

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

Mr. Chairman, tonight I rise in support of the American taxpayer.

Like a lot of my colleagues, I was home last week. I spent a lot of my time talking with constituents and listening to them and to their concerns. And it seems like wherever I went and whomever I spoke with, one concern overrode all of the others. They talked to us a lot about how astounded they were with cap-and-trade and they talked about their fears of what the liberal proposals were going to do to health care.

But the one thing that overrode them all, the commonality of concern, was with spending, the deficit, and national debt. Many times they used the term ``I am dumbfounded'' by what we are spending. Where is this money coming from? Is it coming from China? Is it coming from India? Are we just continuing to roll up the debt? And over and over they said, Tell me what we can do to stop this excessive spending.

Well, Mr. Chairman, my amendment is a good first step, and it is a way that we can begin to slow the Federal spending.

The approps bill before us represents nearly a 12 percent spending increase over last year. And if you add all the stimulus spending, which was $26.5 billion, and the emergency spending, which was $7.9 billion, these programs have benefited from about a 125 percent increase over the past 3 years. So can any of us say that spending 125 percent more than we did on these programs last year in this economic climate is responsible? Look at what that growth has been over a 3-year period of time.

Mr. Chairman, I am asking my colleagues to agree with me to give back just one nickel out of every dollar that is being appropriated and given to the bureaucracy, one nickel out of every single dollar.

As my colleagues all know, I am probably the proudest grandmother here on Capitol Hill. I have two adorable grandsons. My oldest grandson is barely a year old, and he and his brother, his 3-week-old brother, are each already in debt to the tune of about $70,000 to the Federal Government.

I know that there are thousands of grandparents that are out there just like me. They are incredibly concerned about what they see happening. They fear that the exploding debt and the deficit will compromise and will cap the opportunity of those precious children and that we will trade their bright future for one that is limited by a national debt that makes this Nation so sluggish that the best and the brightest opportunities are going to end up going elsewhere. And where are we getting the money? We are getting the money from our grandchildren.

So I urge support of my amendment. Cut 5 percent across the board. Cut a nickel from every dollar. And require today's bureaucracy to find a way to do what the American taxpayer is doing, to tighten the belt and save that nickel out of a dollar for our future.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman mentioned fiscal irresponsibility. I think that growing programs by 12 percent when they have already seen enormous, enormous increases is irresponsible.

We are asking to curtail the growth 5 percent. Curtail that growth 5 percent.

You know, the States have been a great lab of experimentation in this. And many States, including mine of Tennessee, have had across-the-board cuts, and they have used that to rein in the bureaucracy and say tighten your belts. Times are tough. Tighten your belts. And, Mr. Chairman, that is what we should do.

Priorities. She talked about priorities. How about the priority of the American taxpayer? How about the priority of the American farmer who writes that check to Uncle Sam every year and turns to his child and says, Guess what, you're not going to go to the university; you're going to go get another job and work another year before you can go.

These are priorities that are set aside while they meet our obligation to us. It is our responsibility to be good stewards of that dollar. And giving egregious raises--listen to this. McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program grants, an increase of 99.5 percent; FDA salaries and expenses--and, trust me, Energy and Commerce, we've been after them for a long time--14.6 percent.

The list goes on and on.

If the gentlelady will yield.

If the gentlelady will yield, we have done plenty--

Money doesn't solve that problem.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I do rise to oppose this rule. Many of my constituents see this as a government regulation of the very air you breathe. They know that this is a liberal's dream, and that indeed many think that the Democrats have become the party of punishment. We are the party of ``no.'' We want people to know what is in this bill.

I offered in committee an amendment that would require disclosure of what this legislation would cost consumers on their electric bills, at the gas pump, and on the products that they buy.

In Rules Committee, I offered an amendment to require every transaction that FERC makes on these allocations and offsets to be listed in a database that is searchable by the public so they will know what is in this. They were voted down.

I encourage all to oppose this rule and this bill.

Madam Speaker, this is not an energy bill. This is a tax bill. They're going to tax the air you breathe. It is a transfer- of-wealth bill. The American people are figuring this out. Our friends across the aisle have, indeed, become the party of punishment, and my constituents in Tennessee are being punished.

Listen to this: By 2012 we will lose 33,000 jobs. For the next 23 years, every year it is estimated this bill will cause us to lose 25,600 jobs. The American people are figuring this out. We want them to know it. When my colleagues come down here and talk about it being important and talk about it being historic, it's all from the negative. The impacts of this bill will shut small businesses. It will close family farms. It will shutter manufacturing plants, and those jobs will end up in China, in India. It will increase our taxes. The President told us so. Every household is going to pay between $1,300 and $3,100 in new taxes every year. The cost of products will increase. The American people know that the bill chooses winners and losers, and the taxpayer is the big loser.

Madam Speaker, it is an honor and privilege to rise today on behalf of the City of Arlington, Tennessee for being recognized by the EPA with its Excellence in Site Re-Use Award for turning one of the nation's most dangerous Superfund sites into a safe community park.

When pesticide producer Arlington Blending and Packaging closed its doors for the final time in 1979 it left behind contaminants concentrated in the sites soil and ground water due to years of spills and leakage from facility operations. Years after the site closed the EPA conducted a thorough examination of the 2.3 acre site and listed it as one of the most dangerous Superfund sites in the country. This prompted the EPA to launch an extensive cleanup of the site to safely restore it to families residing in the adjourning Mary Alice neighborhood.

With the EPA's cleanup completed, Arlington Mayor Russell Wiseman and Town Superintendent Ed Haley spearheaded an ambitious effort to purchase the former Superfund site and build a community park though the EPA's Return to Use initiative in conjunction with securing a community development block grant for the park's construction. The successful completion of the Mary Alice Park stands as a shining example of how relentless determination, community support and a unified vision can take something that was once thought to be broken and renew it with new life.

Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Arlington Mayor Russell Wiseman, Aldermen Glen Bascom II, Gerald McGee, Hugh Lamar, Oscar Brooks, Harry McKee, Brian Thompson, Town Superintendent Ed Haley, and residents of the Mary Alice Neighborhood for their proactive and conscientious approach to turning a once abandoned and contaminated industrial site into a community park that will be treasured by Arlington families for generations to come.

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

Mr. Chairman, I do have a great amendment at the desk, and I think it speaks to the path we need to travel in this body.

As we know, spending is out of control here in Washington, D.C. The American people know that this government doesn't have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem. And we are hearing it from constituents all across this Nation as they begin to look at how this should be addressed and talk to us about how we think it ought to be addressed.

Well, Mr. Chairman, one of the things that we do know is that in our States--which are great labs for bringing forward entrepreneurial ideas and innovating ways to address problems in the public sector--many times they will move to across-the-board spending cuts. Certainly, in my State of Tennessee, our Democrat Governor went in and made a 9 percent across-the-board spending reduction because he had to get in there and address the out-of-control growth of TennCare, our public option health care delivery system that many want to replicate nationwide.

Now, throughout our Nation's history, we have had times when this body and our Commanders in Chief have sought to also do across-the- board spending cuts. At the onset of World War II, President Roosevelt came in and made a 20 percent across-the-board cut in nondefense spending. President Truman, with the Korean War, made a 28 percent across-the-board spending cut. And he did that, Mr. Chairman, because budgets and appropriations should be about priorities.

At this time in our history, when we see so many families and so many businesses struggling, when we see appropriations and spending out of control here--certainly appropriations over the past 3 years for our CJS appropriations has increased by over 45 percent, this year alone nearly 12 percent--the spending binge is unacceptable. And on behalf of my constituents who are sitting at the kitchen table and many times cutting 50 percent, we need to move forward with spending reductions.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

May I inquire as to how much time is remaining?

I appreciate so much the comments of my colleague, and I am so thrilled that he went through a litany of programs.

You know, it is so indicative of how those who feel like they have unfettered access to the taxpayers' money, that they have first right of refusal on that paycheck that people go to work and work hard to earn so that they can do it for all of these grandiose-sounding programs.

Well, isn't it amazing, with a 12 percent increase in spending, a 5 percent reduction is still an increase. I mean, I just love this new math that Washington, D.C., spits out across this Nation. You would still have an increase. I mean, it is just amazing to me. You just don't get it. You just don't get it.

We have people in my district, we have people across this country, Mr. Chairman, they are losing their jobs. They are sitting at the kitchen table right now watching the TV and going, These people, these elites in Washington, they do not understand it. We're cutting our budget 50 percent.

I have small business owners that are telling me, We're trying to figure out how long we can keep the doors open and how much we can afford to lose every month, and you want to tell me about endangered species and reducing funding 5 percent for endangered species, or doing away or holding back or maybe not moving forward?

You know something, there are men and women in this Nation every day that delay hopes and dreams and aspirations because the liberals never lose their appetite for the taxpayer money. And they meet their obligation to the tax man. And they instruct us, Mr. Chairman, to come here and make good use of those dollars. That is what we are elected to do. And you want to tell me you can't find $100 million? You can't find a 5 percent reduction? You can't make this reduction out of a $64 billion allotment of money? You can't find 5 cents out of a dollar?

The American people are sick and tired, they are sick and tired of reckless runaway spending. They are demanding that it come to a halt. A 5 percent sensible reduction is the way to go about it.

I would encourage all of my colleagues to join me. Let's make a 1 percent, a 2 percent, a 5 percent, and then allow a way to move forward in a more fiscally responsible manner.

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

Announcement by the Chair

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.