Floor Statements

I thank my colleague for yielding.

As we sit like good Congressmen and -women in our offices and as we watch these debates on television, sometimes we feel compelled to run over and participate in the debate. Certainly, that's what drove me over here today, and it's hard to know where to start. There is a long list of things that we could talk about here today.

Mr. Chairman, we could start, for example, with the gentleman from Maryland, who offered again today, as he did in the Budget Committee, the suggestion that perhaps the Recovery Act generated as many as 6 million jobs. If you actually listen very closely to what he says and read the documents that he cites, that's up to 6 million jobs saved or created. The truth of the matter is we could make just as easily the argument that the number is closer to 1.2 million jobs saved or created, and that's assuming that a job saved is a job created. We could have a discussion as to whether or not we should have been spending $400,000 per job, but that's not the reason we're here.

So I would suggest to my friends across the aisle, if they really believed that the Recovery Act was so wonderful, bring it up again. Please offer us another one. In fact, bring us one twice the size, and look the American people in the eye and say that $800 billion wasn't enough, that we want $1.6 trillion worth of another stimulus bill. Please, bring that, and let the President defend that as we have this discussion between now and November.

You could also, Mr. Chairman, go into more detail about what the gentleman from North Carolina mentioned about the PAYGO rules, which is something I'm a little bit familiar with. My predecessor was a big supporter of the PAYGO rules. The PAYGO rules were in place when this government ran up its largest deficits in history. The rule was never designed to cut spending, and it was never designed to lower the deficit. It never accomplished what folks so fondly, in hindsight, believe that it did in the late 1990s. You could go back and look. Really, what drove the surpluses of the late 1990s was the reduction in the size of the Federal Government. But, again, it's not what we're here to talk about today.

What the gentleman from Texas was talking about, however, is spot on, and he would come to the well, as so many folks on the other side will, and say that, well, it was those Bush tax cuts that really got us in the hole that we're in. I don't know why we call them the Bush tax cuts, by the way.

They were extended by a Democrat President and a Democrat Senate and a Democrat House at the end of 2010. I have always referred to them as the Bush-Obama tax cuts, but that doesn't seem to catch on.

But the assertion has always been that after those tax cuts, Mr. Chairman, went into place that revenues went down, that when we cut taxes revenue went down, because certainly that's what the CBO, under the current rules, would tell you would happen. Under the static models that are in place now, when we supposedly cut taxes, the CBO will tell you, well, if you lower the tax rates, revenues will go down.

Unequivocally, this is not what happened with the Bush tax cuts in 2000s. Revenues went up every year from 2003 to the beginning of the great recession.

That's why this bill is so important, Mr. Chairman. Washington does not know how to count. We count in this town in a fashion that only this town counts. The whole rest of the world doesn't understand how we count, and the CBO scoring is a big part of that problem.

Mr. Chairman, that's why I respectfully suggest that we need to pass this bill and send it over to the Senate.

I claim time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to draw attention to the fact that this appears to be essentially where our colleagues across the aisle will probably be taking the national debate for the next 11 months. This is the politics of division. This is not the politics of unity. This is not the politics of trying to bring people together and seeing the country succeed. It's the politics of trying to break us down into different classes.

We hear a lot of talk and will hear a lot of talk this year about fairness, about the 1 percent. What we won't hear, Mr. Chairman, is that, for example, the top 1 percent of the wage earners in this country make 20 percent of the income but pay 40 percent of the taxes.

You won't hear the other side define what is fair; they just want more and more and more. In fact, when you do ask them to talk about what they would specifically have us do--which is go back to the Clinton era tax rates on the top 1 percent--it would pay only 8 cents of every dollar of deficit in this

Nation. It's not designed to solve any problems, Mr. Chairman, and neither is this amendment. It is designed to continue to try and define us.

You can look at this amendment and know that it is simply offered for political gain. It doesn't even attempt to define income inequality in the amendment. It's simply designed to make a political point. Furthermore, you can get this information from Joint Tax if you simply ask for it. That tool is already available to us.

Mr. Chairman, Americans are not envious. They are more interested in how they are doing than whether or not their neighbors are succeeding. They are not envious, and we should not pass an amendment that assumes that they are.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, it's the 2nd of February. We have roughly 10 months between now and the next election. It's plenty of time for the folks across the aisle to let us know what they mean by fairness. Tell us, what does it mean? When you say that we want a fair Tax Code, we want people to pay their fair share, would you please just let us know what that means in terms of raw numbers. Give us a real proposal as to what that means, and give us a real proposal that actually solves the problem, because raising taxes on the top 1 percent simply will not accomplish what they say that it will. Again, it pays only 8 cents of every dollar worth of deficit. Let us know what fairness is, but I can assure you, Mr. Chairman, it is not this amendment. For that reason, I think we should defeat it.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank my colleague, and thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to follow on to what my colleague said in his opening remarks about trying to get your hands around how big $1.2 trillion is. It's one of the things I struggle with. I know it's one of the things that my folks back home struggle with. So I look at it in a different fashion.

If you are a family that is making $46,000 a year, which is just under the average household in the United States, this is the equivalent of borrowing an additional $14,000, which might not sound that much until you stop to realize that if you were that little family making $46,000 a year, trying to borrow an additional $14,000--which is what we're doing today--you also owe $305,000 on the credit card bill. You

owe $305,000 on the credit card bill, and you are trying to borrow another $14,000.

It raises the question in my mind, Mr. Speaker, a fairly straightforward and honest question: Does the President really ever intend to pay it back? Seriously. I think that is a legitimate question to ask.

If someone came to me and said, ``Would you loan me an additional $14,000?'' and I knew that you already owed $305,000, I think asking that person a legitimate question would be to say, ``Do you ever really intend to pay it back?'' And if the answer is, ``Yes,'' which I assume it is, my question then would be, ``Well, when?'' Because you offered us a budget last year, Mr. President, that never balances, ever.

We've heard a lot of nasty things today about Mr. Ryan's budget, about the GOP budget. At least it balances eventually and goes to surplus and provides for a method with which to pay off the debt. The Republican Study Committee budget, which many of us voted for, balances it in 8 years and allows us to pay off the debt. Yet the President has never offered us a budget that ever balances or produces a surplus to generate the money with which to repay the debt that he's asking us to take on today.

The President's own words in 2006 have become somewhat famous. Back then when he was in the Senate, he said that the fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure.

America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the simple question: If the President would like to exercise some leadership, the opportunity exists for him to do so.

And that would be to simply send us a budget that balances. In his lifetime would be great; in his children's lifetime would be okay; but send us a budget, Mr. President, that balances at some time. You are at the White House right now working on it to send to us next month. Send us a budget that balances sometime so at least maybe we can pretend that we will eventually pay off this money that he wants us to borrow today.

Madam Speaker, I have enjoyed sitting here listening to the arguments against this amendment. They range from the bizarre to the completely incredible. We've heard it's not 1985. I wish it were and that the deficit were only $5 trillion. Imagine what the world would have been like if we could have accomplished this 15 years ago.

I have heard that we don't need this amendment to do our job against the backdrop of only being able to do it four times in the last 50 years. That argument simply does not pass the laugh test. I heard just a few moments ago from the honorable minority leader that this was not the right time to pass this amendment because somehow this body was too partisan, too partisan to pass an amendment to the Constitution that would take partisanship out of the equation and force us to balance the budget. These are all extraordinarily weak arguments, Madam Speaker, and they are weak because they do not go to the heart of the matter of why you would be against this amendment.

There's only one reason to be against this amendment. The only true argument against this amendment is that you want to continue to spend money that we don't have, and there are people in this Chamber who believe that is the way that they keep their jobs, that if we continue to run up debt, that if we continue to spend money that we don't have, that somehow back in their district it will encourage their voters to send them back to this Chamber.

Madam Speaker, I believe there are more important things than our jobs. There are more important things than simply remaining a Member of Congress. More so than any amendment, any bill that we will take up this year, this amendment is the opportunity that we have to send a message to the people back home that we are willing to do what is right, that we're willing to stand up for them and to give them the opportunity to change the Constitution of the United States in a way that they see fit.

Last week I came to this floor and stood in the well and called upon the Senate to do something, which was to take up this bill--this bill that had passed out of our subcommittee with tremendous bipartisan support and that passed out of this House with bipartisan support. It's something that went practically unnoticed nationwide, especially in the media.

I ask the Senate to simply take this bill up because it was not only something that the House had supported on a bipartisan basis, but it was something that was actually part of the President's jobs bill as well. So, in the name of doing the right thing, I come to the House floor to thank the Senate for actually doing that. While they're at it, they might want to take this opportunity to take up the other 19 jobs bills that we've sent them over the course of the last several months.

The Senate has done the right thing here. They've taken up a bill that the House has sent them, a bill that will actually give people the opportunity to go back to work. What has happened is that both parties have come together to try and figure out ways to give folks exactly that opportunity. That same possibility exists another 19 times over in the Senate. The Senate has done the right thing with this bill by passing it and by sending it back to us. It's going to become law now.

I call upon the Senate to please do the right thing again and take up the 19 bills that we have sent over so that we will have the opportunity to do this again before the end of the year.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the men and women of the Greatest Generation, as well as to welcome those who will soon be making the trip from their homes in South Carolina to our Nation's Capital.

Seventy years ago, their lives were interrupted by providence. By their selfless action, these ordinary men and woman became extraordinary.

They defended their country and their families. They protected the innocent and freed the captive.

They served freely and without reservation, in what was to become the deadliest conflict in human history.

Too often, Americans are reminded that freedom comes with a heavy burden. Thankfully, their generation understood this, and met the challenge bravely.

That is why there are no words that can express our gratitude, no medals or monuments sufficient to symbolize just how much we owe to them.

But the world we live in today, the freedoms we enjoy, the blessings we count, are all because of them.

That is why we continue to honor them.

And to remember.

Mr. Speaker, last week, unbeknownst to most people because it doesn't get a lot of coverage, we did something in this House that most people in the Nation didn't think we had the capability of doing. We passed, on a bipartisan basis, a bill that will help put people back to work. We passed a bill that made it easier for companies that do business with the Federal Government to get paid, the 3 percent withholding rule. It passed through subcommittee on a bipartisan basis, through committee on a bipartisan basis, and off of the floor of this House on a bipartisan basis. It is actually part of the President's jobs plan--the President directly addresses this 3 percent withholding in his jobs bill--yet it got absolutely no attention. More importantly, it sits today at the Senate with absolutely no activity on it.

This House, Mr. Speaker, has done its job, and we've done our job on a bipartisan basis to pass a bill to put people back to work. But the Senators--most specifically, the Democrat leadership in the Senate--are not doing their job, and I call upon them to do exactly that.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2017 would fund the Federal Government from October 1, 2011 through October 4, 2011. It was considered by a unanimous consent request, which does not require a recorded vote. Had a recorded vote been required, I would have voted against this spending bill.

Mr. Speaker, we just spent several weeks back in our own districts, and I had a chance to talk to a lot of folks--and a lot of my Democrat friends. I do have some of those. They're always asking me, Why can't you just agree with the President? Why can't we go along with what the President says? And I always enjoy when I get the opportunity to come before this body and look exactly at what the President says and to look at what he says about what we're talking about today.

What do we know what the President has said? The President said in this very room just last week that he was for jobs. That's what Boeing is doing. And the NLRB is fighting them. The President has said he's for manufacturing jobs. He said that he's calling for all of us to come together--private sector, industry, universities, and the government-- to spark a renaissance in American manufacturing and help our manufacturers develop cutting-edge tools. That is exactly what Boeing is doing and exactly what the Obama administration's NLRB is fighting, Mr. Speaker.

What else is the President for? He's for exports. He's called on us to double our exports. In fact, he pointed out, correctly so, that 95 percent of the world's customers and the world's fastest growing markets are outside our borders. We need to compete for those customers because other nations are. We need to up our game, and that is exactly what Boeing is trying to do in North Charleston and exactly what the Obama administration's NLRB is fighting right now.

What else has he talked to us about? He's told us how important it is to have jobs here. Again, just last Thursday night, in this very Chamber, he said, And we're going to make sure the next generation of manufacturing takes root not in China or Europe, but right here in the United States of America.

That is exactly what Boeing is doing in North Charleston. They could have opened this plant overseas. In fact, in hindsight, given the treatment of the NLRB, maybe they should have. But they didn't. They chose to create jobs here in the United States in Charleston, South Carolina, and the Obama administration is fighting them at every particular step.

Why are we here, Mr. Speaker? We're here because the President's words don't match his actions. We're here and we are not agreeing with our colleagues across the way because they are not backing up what they say with what they do. If the President would do the right thing and do what he did last week--he rolled back--and give credit where credit is due--he rolled back the new EPA rules on the ozone emissions, he could do the exact same thing before the end of the day today on this NLRB action against Boeing. And he could do the right thing and encourage jobs here in the United States, exactly as he said we would be doing.

But since he won't match his words to his actions, we must pass this rule and we must pass this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I have serious concerns about the policies of H.R. 2887, Transportation Extension, and the procedures the House used to pass it.

First, I applaud the House Leadership's numerous statements and actions on working towards fiscally responsible policies that begin to close our deficit and balance our budget. Achieving those two goals will certainly help create an environment for the private sector to create jobs. H. Con. Res. 34, the House Budget for Fiscal Year 2012, laid a solid blueprint for leaders in this Congress to follow towards that end.

Unfortunately, the actions taken yesterday fail to follow the spending plan that 235 members of the House agreed upon earlier this year. The House Budget calls for a transportation policy that puts the bankrupt Highway Trust Fund and the insolvent Airport Improvement Program back operating within their means. Unfortunately, the bill we passed today sacrifices fiscal sanity for continued chaos.

Unlike the House Budget, the policies of this Transportation Extension would continue current spending levels that, without the aid of previous bailouts, would leave the Highway Trust Fund and the Airport Improvement Program completely bankrupt. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the current policy embraced by this ``clean'' Transportation Extension would require future billion dollar bailouts in 2013 and every year thereafter over the next decade. Unlike the FY2012 plan called for in the House Budget, the action we took yesterday simply avoids the necessary dirty work associated with making sound fiscal decisions.

Second, I was appalled by the procedure the House used in passing this bill. While I recognize the need to quickly move this bill by the start of Fiscal Year 2012, October 1, 2011, I do not believe that justifies suspending the House rules to move a bill that will cost tens of billions of dollars over six months without any opportunity to offer amendments either in the Rules committee or on the House floor. While such action does not technically violate our House or Conference rules, it certainly flies in the face of the higher standards those rules and protocols promote. Most notably, this multi-billion dollar Transportation Extension was only available for no more than a 24-hour review period, as opposed to the three-day review standard. Also, the bill failed to include a Congressional Budget Office cost estimate. Finally, it was unexpectedly voice voted without the opportunity for Representatives to record the collective voice of their constituents. As a result, we are left to less desirable means to record their vote.

Ultimately, yesterday's action is a missed opportunity to ``advance policies that promote greater liberty, wider opportunity, . . , and national economic prosperity,'' as well as, ``to make government more transparent in its actions, careful in its stewardship, and honest in its dealings.'' Had I the chance yesterday to vote, I would have voted against this Transportation Extension.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 692, I missed rollcall 692 on September 7, 2011, had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, I missed rollcall 463 on June 22, 2011. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, I missed rollcall No. 598 on July 15, 2011. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, I missed rollcall No. 601 on July 18, 2011. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes''.

Mr. Speaker, I missed rollcall 602 on July 18, 2011. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes''.

Mr. Speaker, I missed rollcall No. 612 on July 21, 2011. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''