Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, in celebration of Black History Month, I want to continue recognizing African Americans from throughout Georgia's 11th Congressional District who have had a major impact on their community.

Lavada Dillard is an outstanding example of a courageous woman. As a student in 1963 of the historical Main High School of Rome, Georgia, an all-black segregated high school when she attended, she, at the age of 16, and 62 other high school students carried out a successful downtown lunch counter sit-in demonstration asking for the right to be served. She was one of the 62 students jailed for 5 days for this act. Today, Ms. Dillard states that this was a significant moment in her life as she was a part of paving the way for black citizens to have lawful access to public eating facilities, restrooms, and drinking fountains, nationwide.

Ms. Dillard did not stop her fight for equal rights for all people. She became a part of a

major voting campaign in Rome, after the Voting Rights Act was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. At that time, few African Americans were registered voters, and they had very little political power, both locally and nationally. She began working as an activist in human rights efforts with the Black Coordinating Committee during the era of integration of school systems in Rome. She became Rome's first black legal secretary in 1971 and eventually managed the firm's Rome office.

Inspired by her activism and committed to justice for all, she furthered her works in the legal system with Georgia State Legal Services. She has worked in the education system at East Rome Junior High School as school secretary. She served 9 years as a lobbyist for the Georgia Governor's Council on Developmental Disabilities and she has been a board member and executive planner for the Northwest Georgia Minority Business Association. She has served on the Georgia State Board of Elections to select delegates to the National Presidential Convention.

She has been twice awarded for her works as advocate and activist by the Martin Luther King Diversity Class of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 2007, she was instrumental in obtaining a proclamation from the city of Rome for the dedication ceremony for a downtown garden honoring the demonstrators of the Civil Rights Movement of 1963 called ``Freedom Garden.''

She compiled the history of the Civil Rights Movement in Rome to become part of the permanent history of the archives of her community as well as the ``Freedom on Film'' series at the University of Georgia. Her works are currently on display in the Rome area history museum as part of their permanent Civil Rights exhibit. Today, her speaking engagements take her to churches, schools, group youth homes, and youth detention centers--taking the message of equality across color lines and religious sectors.

Lavada Dillard's life has been devoted to fighting for equality for all people--regardless of race or religion. She has been an advocate for the disabled and the underprivileged. She is an example for others to follow, and I am proud that she is a citizen of the 11th Congressional District of Georgia. I ask that my colleagues join me in honoring Lavada Dillard for her commitment to the betterment of her community, our great State of Georgia, and the United States of America.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor a fellow Georgian, Major Shelia Flowers. Major Flowers hails from Robersonville, North Carolina. In 1987, she graduated from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University with a bachelor's degree in Business Administration. After graduating, she was commissioned a Second Lieutenant and attended the Adjutant General Officer Basic Course at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana.

Major Flowers has held numerous challenging positions throughout her 21 years of service in the Army Reserve. Her assignments as a drilling reservist have included: (1) Serving as a Civil Affairs Officer with the 407th Civil Affairs Company at Fort Snelling, Minnesota; (2) Platoon Leader with the 342nd Adjutant General Postal Company in Rome, Georgia; (3) and a Lanes Training Observer Controller with the 1st Battalion of the 347th Regiment located at Fort Gillem, Georgia. While in her last drilling assignment, Major Flowers earned a Master of Science degree in Conflict Resolution from Kennesaw State University.

In 2003, she was mobilized in support of Operation Noble Eagle/ Enduring Freedom and has spent the last six years of her career on active duty. Her parent command is the U.S. Army Reserve Command Headquarters at Ft. McPherson, Georgia. While mobilized to active duty, she served in the G-1 Directorate in support of Operation Noble Eagle as a Crisis Action Team Leader, Equal Opportunity Officer, Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program Manager, and Staff Action Officer.

Major Flowers was assigned to directly support Operation Enduring Freedom upon her transfer to OARDEC in November 2007. She has performed myriad tasks with ease including ARB Case Research Officer, CRO, Lead Case Research Officer, and Tribunal Recorder.

Major Flowers' professional military education includes the Adjutant General Officer Advance Course, Combined Arms and Services Staff School, and Command and General Staff College. She has applied to the Naval War College. Her military decorations include the Meritorious Service Medal, Army Commendation Medal and the Army Achievement Medal.

In keeping with one of the tenets that sustains the Reserve Component, Major Flowers serves her community as a member of a 100 year old service organization, the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. She is an 18- year employee of Lockheed Martin Corporation. She is married to LTC Eric Flowers, who is currently deployed to the Horn of Africa, and they have one daughter.

Major Shelia Flowers is being promoted to Lieutenant Colonel today, and I would like to extend her my congratulations on the floor of the United States Congress and thank her for an exemplary record of service to our nation. The United States--and my home state of Georgia--are proud of Lieutenant Colonel Flowers' commendable professional competence, sound judgment, and total dedication to duty. She has reflected great credit upon herself and upholds the highest traditions of the United States Army Reserve. I wish Shelia and her husband all the best in their future endeavors, and I thank them once again for their leadership in serving our nation.

Madam Speaker, I had some prepared remarks, but I'm going to set those aside because I saw an article this morning in The Hill newspaper by Cheri Jacobus, and I think it says it all and I want to quote an excerpt.

``Congress should throw this greasy pile of pork into the grinder. Instead, give every American household a $10,000 stimulus check to spend as we please. With approximately 100 million households nationwide, we hit that magic number of $1 trillion. This, along with a 2-year moratorium on capital gains taxes, will get the economy off life support.

``Instead of condoms, green golf carts, mouse habitats and government-run health care, Americans would spend based on individual priorities, thus spurring competition, resulting in higher-quality goods and services. Good banks succeed; bad banks fail. Well-priced, quality automobiles hit the streets; lemons fade away. Capitalism lives to fight another day and the greatest country on Earth narrowly survives its near-death experience with socialism.''

Mr. Speaker, it's a pleasure to have the hour--I probably won't take a full hour--but to have the opportunity to speak to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and, in particular, follow my colleague from Texas, the gentleman who just spoke, the words of wisdom that he expressed, the gentleman, Mr. Conaway, who is a certified public accountant, as he described the problems with this bill that was passed on the floor today, Mr. Speaker, and no doubt will be passed by the Senate tomorrow and probably signed into law by President Obama on Monday.

The thing that I want to express, and I think that Mr. Conaway and some other speakers on our side of the aisle said as they spoke about this bill, was not that we on the Republican side are opposed to doing something. I mean, we don't want to just do nothing. Although, Mr. Speaker, I firmly believe that doing nothing would be better than the harm that's likely to be inflicted on our economy and, as Mr. Conaway said, on our children and grandchildren by the enactment of this legislation where we're spending almost $1.2 trillion when you include the interest on the debt, that putting that burden on the backs of our future generations without an absolute assurance, without an absolute assurance, Mr. Speaker, that those 4 million jobs would be created and that this would

jump-start our economy and get us out of this deep recession.

Even with that, I would have some concerns, but Vice President Biden just said the other day that he thought that this bill had about a 30 percent chance of failure. Now, you think about that. We're going to take money, Federal money, that we really don't have in the Treasury. We hope that we can sell these bonds and this Federal paper, Treasury notes to people on the open market. Probably some foreign governments like China and others might buy some of this. But if they don't, then it's just simply a matter of running the printing press to come up with this money, and of course, as we all know that weakens our dollar. It leads to inflation. And so I'm not surprised when Vice President Joe Biden said, well, look, there was no guarantee, we're doing the best we can. We hope it works, but it's probably got about a 30 percent chance of failure.

For my money, Mr. Speaker, that is too great a chance of failure. It is just not worth that, and that's why I say that, in fact, doing nothing probably would be better. And although we would go through some tough times economically, as we are now, indeed people are suffering, and it may take 2 or 3 years to get out of this recession, but the Republican minority has a plan. We're not just standing in the doorway blocking any kind of meaningful, good legislation. We want something to work. We don't want it to take 3 or 4 years. We want to try to stimulate this.

And that's what our leader said on the floor this afternoon as we debated this issue, and finally, Madam Speaker spoke and our leader Boehner spoke, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee on the majority side, Mr. Obey, spoke. But it's really the words of Mr. Boehner I think I would want my colleagues and anybody within shouting distance to remember what he said.

We who voted ``no'' on this bill are fully aware, fully cognizant of the fact that people in every single district in this country, all 435 of them, my 11th of Georgia absolutely--the State of Georgia is facing a $3 billion deficit, and like most States, they have to balance their budget. So times are tough, and as John Boehner said, and I would repeat here now, Mr. Speaker, we want to do something.

Unfortunately, the plan that the minority Republican party had was given no opportunity to be presented. There was no subcommittee hearings. There were no full committee hearings. There was no opportunity for amendments to be presented on the floor, so-called at least a modified open rule, where both Republicans and Democrats would have an opportunity to say, you know, we need to change this. There are some good in this bill. I think it's a 1,000-page bill. We had it on the floor earlier. Remember, it was about that high. It's probably six or eight Bibles thick. And within that, yeah, there were some good things but a whole lot of things that are not good, and I will try to speak to some of that as we proceed.

But the idea of shutting out the minority and not letting them speak on behalf of the constituents that they represent, every one of us, 178 Republicans represent about 675,000 people in their respective districts. And quite honestly, 50 very conservative Democrats, they call themselves the Blue Dogs. Many of them are from Southern States, good Members, also representing 675,000 people, and fiscally conservative. They were shut out. They didn't get an opportunity. That's why this vote ended up being--even though the Democratic majority prevailed, the bipartisanship on the vote was on the ``no'' side. That means that every single Republican in this body, Mr. Speaker, all 178 of us voted no, and we were joined by six or eight Democrats who all voted ``no,'' and all for the same reason.

The Republican Members are not all the same on every issue. We have conservative Members on social issues, like myself, and we have some Members who are socially moderate. But what you saw today is the coming together of the Republican minority on one thing that we absolutely always agree on and that we will always stand for and what I think defines us from the majority party. There's a difference. There's no question about it, and that difference is, we on the Republican side, Mr. Speaker, believe in limited Federal Government, and we believe in reduced spending and let the States do what they can for themselves and the people do what they can for themselves. Let them keep more of their own hard-earned money. That means individual employees. It also means employer--these small, mom-and-pop companies.

Most of the jobs in this country, as we all know, are created by those small, mom-and-pop companies, less than, far less than 50 employees. We're not talking about the Microsofts and the Home Depots and the Coca-Colas and the huge companies. We're talking about these small companies that would, if you gave them an opportunity to keep more of their own money--and that's basically what the Republican plan was, Mr. Speaker, as you know, that we felt like in this bill, that there should be some spending, and the amount of spending should be significant on infrastructure projects. After all, that's what was talked about for a month or 6 weeks ahead of time: we are going to put people back to work in this country on repairing bridges, rebuilding roads, putting more money into rapid transit across all 50 of the States.

And each State, Mr. Speaker, was asked to submit a list of projects called shovel ready--shovel-ready projects so that they could start turning dirt within 90 days. I think the bill finally extended to 120 days. We were in favor of that. We are in favor of that. But in this final bill that was passed on the floor of this House today, about 7 percent of the money, about 7, not 70, Mr. Speaker, but 7 percent of the money goes to those infrastructure projects within our States. And I do believe that more money spent on those projects would indeed put people back to work and get the economy going, and I was very much in favor of that.

But the other thing that we felt very strongly about, though, was the opportunity to let people keep more of their own money, and that's why the Republican alternative had a 5 percent cut in the tax rate of everybody who pays taxes, no matter what your income. If you're paying at the 36 percent bracket, you'd pay 31 percent. If you're paying at the 28 percent bracket, you'd pay 23 percent. If you're paying at the 15 percent, 10, and the 10, 5. You get it. Everybody, across-the-board 5 percent cut in their Federal tax burden, and immediately start seeing that money in their paycheck, not going to Uncle Sam.

And also, you know, that the Republican alternative felt very strongly the way to create jobs in this country or to preserve jobs-- President Obama said create 4 million or save 4 million. He's a little vague on that. But if you cut the corporate income tax rate from 35 to 25, and that's in the Republican alternative, the small businessmen and -women who usually pay as individuals, they're not S corporations or C corporations or LLCs or whatever you call it. But that would give them an opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to make more profit, to be able to expand their product line, add on to the size of their building, bring in more people, hire more people and get more people who are earning a paycheck and indeed paying taxes but at a lower rate.

And the final analysis, as we have proven under Presidents Kennedy in 1960, Reagan in 1980, and during the Bush administration in the early 2001, 2000, when you cut taxes and you let people keep more of their money, you do grow jobs. And we did that. Nobody can deny that. They could be critical of a lot of things. And mistakes are always made. And it's easy to be Monday morning quarterbacking.

But, without question, that type of economic philosophy and approach is what increases the Federal revenue because it grows jobs, it expands the job base.

So, these were some of the things that we had proposed but yet never saw the light of day. And it's sad because I truly believe that that would work.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, to the tax cuts, the other things of significance in the Republican alternative was to pledge--indeed, it's law, had we passed it--1 percent reduction. One percent. I know that doesn't sound like a lot but, believe me, up here inside the Beltway it's pretty hard to cut anything. But

we were talking about cutting 1 percent of spending across the board, except for our national defense. Preserve the spending on our national defense. Continue to keep this country safe and not pull the rug out from under the men and women who are doing the fighting and the suffering and the dying to keep us safe. But, across the board, every other spending category, 1 percent cut.

These are the kind of things that I wanted to talk about to my colleagues and make sure, on both sides of the aisle, but I am particularly talking to my friends on the majority side so that they do understand and your constituents understand that we're not in the minority hoping for failure, we're not hoping that President Obama is unsuccessful. Nothing could be further from the truth. We want President Obama to be successful. And I hope that he is successful.

But I don't want for some socialized program to be so successful that all of a sudden we get away from a market-driven economy and the democracy that we have all enjoyed and loved and what makes this country unique and wonderful. We don't want a European-type socialism.

And so if you hear someone say, Well, I hope this thing fails, please don't get the idea, my colleagues, that it's directed toward our new President. Of course not. Of course not. But we just want to make sure that our country succeeds in the right way. And this is for our children and our grandchildren.

I wanted to take a moment to paraphrase an article that I read in the newspaper today when I got up early this morning that I was looking at, Mr. Speaker. The Hill, the newspaper that we get daily when we're in session. And Hill and Roll Call and Politico, we all reads these things. There's some fine, fine writers on these newspapers. And this was an article penned by Cheri Jacobus. And here's what she said. I think it really cuts right to the chase in regard to $1 trillion worth of spending. And I'm going to quote just parts of her article:

``Congress should throw this greasy pile of pork into the grinder. Instead,'' instead, ``give every American household a $10,000 stimulus check to spend as we please. With approximately 100 million households nationwide, we hit that magic number of $1 trillion.''

So you give $10,000 to every one of 100 million households, that is spending the $1 trillion. So you spend it in a different way. You give it, Mr. Speaker, to the families. And, along with that, we have a 2- year moratorium on capital gains taxes, and then we will get this economy off life support.''

And I want to point out in the Republican alternative this idea of giving $10,000 to each of 100 million families was not part of it, but the suspension of capital gains tax definitely was. And then you would see the stock market not go down 350 points when something like this passes, you would see it go up 350 points.

So, doing this now, instead of letting the government decide how we spend the $1 trillion. Let the families decide how the $1 trillion are spent. ``Instead of condoms, green golf carts, mouse habitats, and government-run health care, Americans would spend based on individual priorities, thus spurring competition, resulting in higher-quality goods and services. Good banks succeed; bad banks fail. Well-priced, quality automobiles hit the streets; lemons fade away. Capitalism lives to fight another day and the greatest country on earth narrowly survives its near-death experience with socialism.''

She goes on to say, ``So here's a challenge for every Member of Congress.'' Mr. Speaker, that is us, me and you and our colleagues on both sides of the aisle. ``So here's a challenge to every Member of Congress or, more accurately, a dare. Ask your constituents what they would do with $10,000. Compare their list to what is in the stimulus bill. Then see who has the best ideas for spending $1 trillion.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to use a couple of posters to help my colleagues understand and put in perspective the amount of money we're spending because, you know, $1,000 is a heck of a lot of money to me. You get up to a million, a billion, and a trillion, I don't even know how many zeroes we're talking about. But let's just use this poster to help us.

Sizing up the stimulus. Well, this proposed stimulus, as I said to my colleagues, is $1.2 trillion, if we can focus on this first poster. $1.2 trillion. Now, let's put that in perspective.

Back in the late sixties, and that terrible, terrible time of the Vietnam War. We lost almost 60,000 of our precious men and women in that battle, and $111 billion was spent. Now if you adjust that for inflation in today's dollars, it's $698 billion, compared to $1.2 trillion. That is a few more zeroes.

The invasion of Iraq, inflation adjusted, $597 billion. The money has gone up a little bit now, but it's certainly under $1 trillion. Well under.

Now, let's go back. Let's back to the 1932 to the 1939, 1940 era. The era of the New Deal. $32 billion adjusted for inflation--it's been a long time ago. $500 billion. In comparison, this is the largest spending bill not just in the history, Mr. Speaker, of the United States. I believe, if I am not wrong on this, and I don't think I am, this is the largest spending bill that any government has enacted in the history of the world. In the history of the world.

We're talking about increasing our national debt, not the deficit, but the national debt, which today is about $10.7 trillion, with a T. We're talking about increasing that by 10 percent in one snap of your finger. As soon as President Obama signs this bill into law Monday, all of a sudden we have increased the national debt 10 percent. Up to $12.5 trillion.

How in the world, Mr. Speaker, are we ever going to pay that off? I mean, it's downright depressing, is what it is. Not just scary, but it's downright depressing.

And speaking of that money that was spent on the New Deal, and I know people love to say, Well, FDR was one of our greatest Presidents, and no doubt he was a man of great courage; great personal courage. Overcame tremendous adversity physically and was our President during very difficult times of World War II, and did some wonderful things. And I commend him for that.

But I am not so sure the New Deal was such a good deal. In fact, it may very well have been a raw deal. Let me quote someone who should know better than I, because he was there. He lived through it. He advised President Roosevelt. He was President Roosevelt's Secretary of the Treasury, and his name was Henry Morgenthau.

And listen to what the Secretary of the Treasury under President Roosevelt said to a hearing before the Ways and Means Committee of this House in 1939. And I will quote, ``We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before, and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say, after 8 years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started, and an enormous debt to boot.''

Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau, under President Roosevelt, 1939, some 7 years into the New Deal. That is probably why Vice President Biden, Mr. Speaker, said that, Look, this thing has got a 30 percent chance of not being successful. And allowing this recession to be deeper and more prolonged than if we indeed did nothing.

Well, let me ask my colleagues to join with me in looking at a few more posters to just, again, put this spending in perspective. With this amount of money, the $789 billion--and when I say $1.2 trillion, that's the interest over 10 years on the debt. But when you do the math, fairly simple, and you say that you're going to create 4 million jobs, 4 million jobs with this, that means you're spending $275,000 for every job.

That's $275,000 for every job. That's what it's going to cost. And a lot of these jobs are going to pay $30,000, $35,000, maybe even $20,000, $25,000 a year. That is shocking when you think about it. That that much money to create one job, $275,000 worth of spending.

Here's another chart that I think is real instructive that I wanted my colleagues to also look at. Those of you in the back of the Chamber, you may not be able to see this, or the far left or far right, but this says, Can you afford to pay for the Democratic spending bill? At $825 billion, or $789 billion, the economic stimulus plan sailing through Congress would cost each American family, each American family, more than $10,000 on average.

Here is how that price tag compares with the typical family expenses in a year:

Stimulus spending: $10,500.

What the family spends on food, clothing, and health care: $10,400. What the family spends on shelter, whether they are renting or owning their own home: $11,657.

So one-third of their expenditure in a year, that is what it is going to cost them in the final analysis, $10,500, every year, every family, to pay for this $1.1 trillion, $1.2 trillion.

That is why, going back, remember when I said or read the article about, literally, why doesn't the Federal Government just write a $10,000 check and give it to every family, and say: Look, I don't know your situation. You may have a mortgage past due, a car payment past due. You may need to pay down a credit card debt. You may have a child that wants to go back to college and you don't have the tuition for the next semester. Indeed, you may even have a family member that needs an operation or some dental work or something and you can't pay for it, and you can take money out of that $10,000. Or maybe you just simply want to save it for a rainy day. Lord knows, we have got a rainy day now. Or you might, if your situation is such and you think the old clinker of a car is falling apart and we want to buy American, and General Motors or Ford Motor Company has got a great new car that gets good gas mileage and we will go ahead and buy a car, or whatever, a washing machine. And all of a sudden, the economy starts moving. And so this shows it, I think, Mr. Speaker, in a very vivid, vivid way.

Before I finish up, Mr. Speaker, and I didn't want to take the entire hour, but I wanted to talk just a little bit about some of the health care things that are in this bill.

There is money toward moving us as a Nation for complete electronic medical records. I am for that, Mr. Speaker. I think that would be a good thing. I think that would save lives and save money, and I clearly feel that that is something that we want to do. But there are a number of provisions, and I will just mention one that really, really concerns me, and that is this comparative effectiveness commission. Comparative effectiveness, where the Federal Government, and I think $1 billion, if I am not mistaken, I think $1 billion goes into creating this other layer of government bureaucracy called comparative effectiveness that would decide which medical procedures or medications were cost effective and in certain instances will just simply say that, ``Well, we don't think that is cost effective,'' that MRI that mom had in the emergency room last week or the CAT scan or electroencephalogram because a child had a seizure.

To say that it is not effective, who are these bureaucrats that would have the ability to do that? Have they ever had a stethoscope around their neck? Have they ever had a white lab coat on? No. They are just number crunchers, and all of a sudden they are going to come in between you, our constituents, men and women, and your health care provider, your physician, whether it is a pediatrician or obstetrician or general surgeon or a family doctor.

So as we look at this massive bill, what we are seeing is a lot of things in there, Mr. Speaker, that really don't have anything to do with putting people back to work. That 7 percent spending on infrastructure, that ought to be 25 percent of the spending. It ought to be much more than it is. But yet, there are things in there, and I could go through a list of them and it is almost appalling.

I mention that about that health care. It is just trying to set policy in this bill, moving us in a direction that I don't think, I do not think, the American people want. And I think, the American people, my colleagues, remember back in 1993, 1992, under President Clinton, when current Secretary of State Clinton now but first lady at that time was sort of put in charge of trying to develop a single payor national health care system just like they have in the United Kingdom or in Canada or other countries where it doesn't work so well and care is rationed.

My fear, and as you read this bill and you try to read through, the devil is in the details, and you see these things and you see what is happening in the health care provision, it is definitely trying to move us in that direction once again.

So again, our opposition to the bill is not that we don't want to help people and help them right now, that we don't have compassion. Indeed, there is no one more compassionate in this Chamber than the minority leader, Mr. Boehner. In fact, many times he is almost to the point of tears, he is so compassionate.

So we just want to look at this thing, as we have, and realize that so much of the money, Mr. Speaker, in this bill is all about pushing an agenda and spending money, some of which may be worthwhile, but it should go through the regular order. That is why we are up here, mainly, to authorize and appropriate spending. That is a major responsibility of the Members of Congress in the House and Senate. And we should do that under regular order. But it is like the chief of staff now, our former colleague here in the House, the chief of staff to President Obama, Rahm Emanuel, the gentleman from Illinois, the same State as the President, said it would be a tragedy to let any crisis go unused, or something to that effect. I am paraphrasing, but it would be a tragedy to let a crisis go to waste. In other words, take a crisis and try to do some good things and put people back to work; but, at the same time, pump all kind of other stuff in there that you have been trying to get passed for years and have not been successful because the majority of the Congress doesn't want it, so you throw it in there as emergency spending and drag it along as we tug at heartstrings.

And that is just not right, Mr. Speaker. That is unfair. It is deceiving the American public, and it is putting a burden on them that I will have no part of. And my colleagues on this side of the aisle, 178 of us, Republicans, and six to eight conservative, fiscally conservative Democrats feel the same way.

I just feel that if we had had an opportunity, Mr. Speaker, if we had had an opportunity to present an alternative, we could do that in a bipartisan way. We don't hate each other, as you know, Mr. Speaker. We respect each other, and in many cases best friends are on opposite sides of the aisle. We can do these things. But somehow this top down, my way or the highway, closed rules, no opportunity to go through committee, we are losing out, and it is not right, because the minority represents, what, 48 percent? A lot of people, a lot of people in this country, Mr. Speaker, elected Republican Members of this House and Senate.

So as I conclude, I just want to the say to all of my colleagues, on the Republican side we voted ``no,'' and we voted no for a very good reason. We have great fear, just as Vice President Biden said, that this won't work. And it is not like, well, it just didn't work, and we lost that game and we will play another one. No. This is too big a risk. It puts too big a burden on our future generations, and it has the likelihood of leaving us in this recession for a long time to come.

We had an opportunity. My colleague, my Senate colleague from Georgia, Johnny Isakson, had an amendment on the Senate side that would give every person, every family that bought a new home a $15,000 tax credit. It passed on the Senate side I think by a voice vote, unanimous consent, everybody. I heard Senator Schumer say what a wonderful, wonderful idea that the gentleman from Georgia, Senator Johnny Isakson, had, because this whole mess started with the downturn of the housing market; and until we get those houses moving and sold, that will get us out of this mess. And the Senate knew it. And yet, when they got to conference committee, what happened? They pulled that amendment out. Pulled that amendment out.

I really believe if that and maybe an opportunity for people to get a fixed-rate mortgage at 4 percent or 5 percent, 30-year fixed rate, let them have that opportunity over the next year or so, the Johnny Isakson amendment, maybe we can pass it as a stand-alone bill. The Republican alternative to this spendulous bill where we emphasize tax cuts and spending cuts and we spend more money on infrastructure, I think if we came back and did that, we would be out of this the recession in 12 months to 18 months.

And so that is why I am here this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, just to share those thoughts with my colleagues. And I hope and pray that President Obama will be successful; but when it is something that I have great fear of hurting the country, taking us down a road that our Founding Fathers never intended us to go, then I am going to stand up and I am going to say, ``No, Mr. President,'' as I did today.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the order of the House of today, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 4 o'clock and 13 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Tuesday, February 17, 2009, at 10 a.m., unless it sooner has received a message from the Senate transmitting its concurrence in House Concurrent Resolution 47, in which case the House shall stand adjourned pursuant to that concurrent resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 469--the Produced Water Utilization Act of 2009--introduced by the Ranking Member of the Science Committee, Mr. Hall of Texas. I want to thank Mr. Hall for constructing this thoughtful legislation and for the constant leadership he has provided to both Energy and Commerce Committee and the Science Committee.

Produced water is comprised mainly of salty water that is trapped in reservoir rock below ground. It comes to the surface when drilling for oil or natural gas and usually contains oil and metals from production. Approximately 10 barrels of produced water are captured for every barrel of oil derived, and that results in a total of 15-20 billion barrels of produced water generated here in the United States on an annual basis.

Mr. Speaker, as the population of the United States continues to grow, additional potable water supplies will be required to sustain individuals, agriculture, and industry all over the country. H.R. 469 represents an innovative way in which we can utilize the produced water resources that would otherwise go to waste.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation directs the Secretary of Energy to establish a program for research and development to harvest produced water in an environmentally safe way for irrigation, municipal, and industrial purposes. Once this program is established, we can help address the droughts that are occurring across the country--including in my Northwest Georgia district--simply by providing the public with additional water resources.

Mr. Speaker, I have to commend my colleague from Texas on his leadership on this issue and working in a bipartisan manner to bring it to the floor today.

I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 469.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 631--the Water Use Efficiency and Conservation Research Act. I commend my colleague--Mr. Matheson of Utah--for crafting this thoughtful legislation that was reported to the House on a broad bipartisan basis.

Over the past couple of years, my home State of Georgia--and specifically my district--has experienced significant and historic drought conditions that have brought to the forefront what the future may hold for our local water supply.

In addition to the drought conditions in my district, a number of other states are facing similar challenges. Over the next five years, more than half of the states in our country anticipate some sort of water shortage that will wreak havoc on our environment, as well as our economy. In these currently tumultuous economic times, we need to take every step possible to efficiently use our water supply to assist our struggling economy.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 631 promotes the adoption of emerging technologies to help us make better use of one of our most precious resources-- water. This legislation addresses ways in which the Environmental Protection Agency can use its Office of Research and Development to promote technologies that increase water efficiency and conservation via collection, treatment, and reuse of rainwater

and greywater, and research on water storage.

Mr. Speaker, at a time when water shortages are becoming more commonplace in our Nation, I applaud the bipartisan work of the Science Committee under the leadership of Chairman Gordon and Ranking Member Hall on this important legislation. They understand the need for us to work across the aisle on these important issues, and I commend them both for their leadership.

I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 631.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 554, the National Nanotechnology Initiative Amendments Act of 2009. As a former Member of the Science Committee, I am pleased to lend my support to this important legislation brought forward today by Chairman Gordon.

Nanotechnology represents the future of science and information technology. These scientific methods have already been responsible for a number of products that are used everyday in our country like car parts, cosmetics, and first aid dressings.

Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, the future of nanotechnology holds a world of possibility in a number of fields--including health care, which is incredibly important to me as a physician Member of the House.

The National Nanotechnology Initiative is a multi-agency federal program aimed at accelerating the discovery, development, and deployment of nanometer-scale science, engineering, and technology. Since its implementation in 2003, the NNI represents the federal government's commitment to harnessing and developing the world's most cutting edge technology to help keep our country competitive in a technology-based global economy.

H.R. 554 is a bill that builds on the successful aspects of the NNI by making some improvements and modifications while keeping much of the Initiative intact. For example, this legislation strengthens the environment, health, and safety research component of the NNI, and it increases the emphasis on nanomanufacturing research and technology transfer. H.R. 554 acknowledges and addresses the need for enhanced research and education in the field of nanotechnology and provides the framework for K-12 education in nanotechnology that will help future generations stay at the cutting edge of scientific advances.

I am very pleased that this legislation moved through the Science and Technology Committee in a bipartisan manner, much like it did in the 110th Congress. I hope that the Senate will act on this legislation in the near future, so this important legislation can be signed into law by the President.

Mr. Speaker, I am very supportive of H.R. 554 and the possibility that nanotechnology has for the future of science. I urge all of my colleagues to support its passage.

Mr. Speaker, thank you, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to be before my colleagues this evening to discuss a couple of very important issues. One, of course, is immediate and that is this crisis in our economic situation and the so-called economic spendulous--excuse me, stimulus--bill. I use that slip of the tongue, Mr. Speaker, deliberately, because when I talk to my colleagues about the amount of money that we're about to spend to try to stimulate our economy, I think all of my colleagues will agree it's a tremendous amount of spending. And so we do want to spend at least the first half of this allotted time, Mr. Speaker, talking about that issue, about this bill that we're going to be voting on, probably tomorrow, if my intelligence is correct, and then the Senate will vote on the conference report on Friday and President Obama, no doubt, will sign this spendulous bill into law. So we want to spend at least half of our time talking about that and talking about the process and talking about the policy and talking about the missed opportunity to have done this in a better way.

And then in the final time allotted to me this evening, I want to speak about something that is of great concern to a lot of people across this country, certainly of great concern to the members of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in my district, the 11th of Georgia, in my parish, St. Joseph's Catholic Church. As my pastor and my fellow parishioners asked me, many of them I'm sure didn't realize that one of their co-parishioners was their Congressman, but from the pulpit the request to ask Members of Congress to not allow something called the Freedom of Choice Act to be allowed to come into law. And so we are going to discuss that.

I'm very pleased, though, that I have a colleague with me tonight and we'll share time, that's Representative Michele Bachmann from Minnesota, and we may have other Members that will join us. I want them at any time to feel free to ask for time and to speak, or we can have a colloquy on either one of these issues.

Let me just start out, Mr. Speaker, as I said at the outset, and let's talk about this economic stimulus package. It is, as I understand, in the final analysis going to be $798 billion. We currently have a national debt of $10.7 trillion. This is almost going to increase that national debt by 10 percent, Mr. Speaker--by 10 percent--and under the ruse, unfortunately, I truly believe that it is a ruse, of stimulating jobs. Now we have had, indeed, an opportunity, many opportunities over the last several weeks to look at some alternatives, to do things under the regular order, regular process, of subcommittee, committee markups, amendments made in order, so that both sides of the aisle had an opportunity to do this right, to make it better, to concentrate more on across-the-board tax cuts at every marginal tax level as the Republican alternative does, to lower the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, so that these multitude of small business men and women across this country who create most of the jobs. In fact, the organization of franchisee members are on the Hill right now for their first annual, first inaugural advocacy day, and they will be across the Capitol tomorrow in both Chambers, in the offices of the Members, talking to them about the strain and struggle that

they're going through in regard to very thin margins, high taxes, high cost of health care.

When we designed, we Republicans in the minority, designed a bill, I think it's H.R. 470 is the number, but, Mr. Speaker, it had a strong emphasis on a tax break for all Americans, anybody that paid taxes, 5 percent across the board, to give them an opportunity to have money in their pockets right away, to either spend or save or pay down debt. In addition to that, we are very much in favor of spending on infrastructure projects, roads and bridges and mass transit, things that indeed would put people back to work, I have no doubt.

My State of Georgia, our Department of Transportation board members and commissioner and senior staff are up here as we speak to talk about the shovel-ready projects that they have. And when this bill was first discussed back when President Obama was President-elect Obama, all the talk was about the amount of money that would be spent in all 50 States, all 50 States that are suffering, my home State of Georgia facing a $3 billion deficit, to have the opportunity, as I say, to get some of these projects done and put people back to work.

Mr. Speaker, in the final bill, now could it have changed a little bit in the conference report? It is possible, but unfortunately the Democratic majority who pledged to allow the bill to be posted on the Internet so that we could see it 48 hours in advance and be able to know what exactly is in there, but that hasn't happened, but it is my suspicion that the percentage of that $789.5 billion is probably no more than 7 percent, Mr. Speaker. No more than 7 percent. It's almost as tricky as the so-called TARP legislation.

Remember that, Mr. Speaker? My colleagues, remember that one? Just before the end of the 110th Congress, when Secretary Paulson came to us and said ``the sky is indeed falling, and you have no more than 48 hours to give me the absolute power to take $750 billion of taxpayer money and use it to buy toxic assets, troubled assets, from financial institutions.'' And of course, what happened was something far different from that. The TARP became a totally inappropriate acronym. The Troubled Asset Relief Program turned into a capital infusion program. And $750 billion, half of it, was doled out to the biggest financial institutions in the country, I think nine total. Some of them were even forced to take the money. And then, of course, the money that went to General Motors and Chrysler. We even made the GMAC a bank so they could qualify for the capital infusion with no oversight, no responsibility and no transparency.

And so you say, Mr. Speaker, as a Member of Congress, and also as one of our constituents, a voter, whether a Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian, said look, ``fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.'' And I don't think the American public is going to fall for this so-called ``stimulus package'' that was supposed to be money for infrastructure projects with a good balanced amount of tax cuts. It is just not there. It is just not there.

So, Mr. Speaker, we're going to talk about that this evening. And before I yield to my colleague from Minnesota, I just want to put these numbers a little bit in perspective. Now I have a few posters. And these were drawn up as we voted on the House version. In the House version, the number was a little higher than the $789.5 billion that we're going to vote on tomorrow. But it was in the same ballpark, believe me.

Let me show this first poster to my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, and this one is entitled, ``Sizing Up the Stimulus.'' Well, the proposed stimulus in the bill that passed the House a few days ago was $1.2 trillion. Now that includes the debt service over the next 10 years on that borrowed money, and it would be disingenuous not to. You could say, ``oh, no, no, Congressman, you have got it wrong. It was $826 billion. Where do you come up with that $1.2 trillion?'' Well, ladies and gentlemen, that is the debt service. And you cannot ignore that. That has to be paid. And pretty soon, the debt service and the payment for Medicare, Medicaid and entitlement programs is going to take every dollar of our budget.

So, anyway, the proposed stimulus, $1.2 trillion, put in comparison, I know this is a little difficult to see, the writing is a little small, but the Vietnam war, $111 billion, the invasion of Iraq, $551 billion. The New Deal, the New Deal, remember that one? Thirty-two billion dollars. And then the Marshall Plan, $12.7 billion. Just to kind of put these numbers in perspective of what we're talking about because people, Mr. Speaker, easily get a little confused here. Did he say $1 million or did he say $1 billion? And what is $1 trillion? We could describe that. And maybe my colleague knows a good description of how far you could stretch $1 trillion. It would probably cross the globe three times.

Also continuing on that vein of trying to put the cost of this in perspective. Now this is based on the estimated number of jobs that would be created by the Democratic majority by this ``spendulous plan'' that we're going to vote on, as I say, tomorrow. They're estimating that the number of jobs that would be created may be five or six, well, I think it is down to 4 million. And actually the President is not even saying the creation, Mr. Speaker, of 4 million jobs. He is saying the sustainment of and/or creation. So there is really no guarantee and no pledge of that, indeed, but if it does create 4 million jobs, the cost of this, just simple math, $275,000 a job, $275,000 a job. And I'm sure many of these jobs will be paying $25,000 a year. You could hand that money to a worker and keep him or her employed for 8\1/2\ years at that rate with a good benefit package. So, again, the cost per job is prohibitive in my opinion.

Colleagues, I'm going to show you one more poster before I yield to the gentlelady from Minnesota. This is a very, very telling chart. And again, strain your eyes a bit because it is worth seeing. And I will try to walk you through it. And it is titled, ``Can You Afford to Pay for the Democratic Spending Bill?'' Can you afford to pay for it? At $825 billion, the economic stimulus plan sailing through Congress, and indeed it is sailing through. We're not going to have 48 hours to look at it. The stimulus plan would cost each American family more than $10,000 on average, each American family more than $10,000. Here is how that price tag compares with typical family expenses in a year. And, Mr. Speaker, I realize I'm talking to my colleagues on this floor, both Republicans and Democrats. I'm not talking to the television audience back home. But the men and women who serve here have families. And they have family expenses. And I'm sure when I point out that on average, a typical family spends $10,400 a year on food, clothing and health care and on shelter, their home, whether they own their home or rental cost, their shelter is $11,657 for their family. And the stimulus spending is going to cost them $10,520. Thirty percent of their overall family budget is going to go toward this stimulus ``spendulous'' bill that is supposedly going to create all these jobs and get us out of this severe economic recession.

Well, would it be worth taking the chance even if we had no other alternatives? Well President Obama says ``yes.'' Vice President Biden says, ``well it does have, I hate to admit, a 30 percent chance of failing.'' Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, that is too great a chance. Those odds are not good, not good enough for the American people. The Members of this side of the aisle, the Republican Members, the minority Members, and quite honestly, if they had a chance to speak up and to submit amendments, maybe 50 of the conservative Blue Dog Democrats would agree with us. I wish they would have the opportunity to take a vote. Unfortunately, that has not occurred in this new open bipartisanship spirit that Speaker Pelosi has promised in the 111th Congress.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I would love to yield some time now to my colleague from Minnesota. Michele Bachmann is in her second term, but you would think that it was her tenth term. She is doing an outstanding job. She is very knowledgeable on this issue.

And I will gladly yield to my colleague.

If the gentlelady will yield just for a second. Reclaiming my time. I'm so glad that Representative Bachmann brought that out about inflationary spiral; and that's absolutely true. You print this money and this debt has to be paid back. First thing you know, the value of our money goes down, and then we've created all these jobs that maybe pay $25,000 a year, and first thing you know, people wake up and realize that their money is only worth $15,000 a year. So that is a huge, huge problem.

And I wanted to make one other point before yielding back to my colleague. As we look at what she was talking about, this national debt, we are approaching a, what, $15 trillion national debt, which is the Gross Domestic Product. The sum of all goods and services in this country is about $15 trillion. And after we add on this death we're going to be at $12.5 trillion. So anybody that has just a scintilla of knowledge of economics knows that this is unsustainable.

And I yield back to my colleague.

Reclaiming my time. Absolutely, what you say couldn't be more true.

And I want to briefly, Mr. Speaker, talk about another colleague from Georgia in the other body, and that's our junior Senator, Johnny Isakson, a neighbor of mine in Cobb County who has been serving so well, first in this House, Mr. Speaker, and now in the United States Senate.

But Johnny Isakson, who has been in the real estate business, I think he spent 40 years in the real estate business. His dad owned Northside Realty. And he has gone, he's seen us go through periods like this in the past. And as he was explaining to me, I believe Gerald Ford was President when we went through the last real downturn in the housing market. And what stimulated the market to come back, Mr. Speaker, was a $2,000 tax credit for the purchase of a new home, not for flipping or investment, but as a homestead. And within a short period of time, I'm going to say, 6 months to a year, that economy, that housing market was back to life, and nails were being driven, and walls were being framed and foundations were being laid and, indeed, happy times were here again.

So what Johnny Isakson, Senator Isakson proposed, Mr. Speaker, to get this housing market going and stimulated, and let's face it. As he pointed out, and I completely agree, it was the housing market which brought us down and got us in this situation, and it's going to be the resumption, restoration of the housing market that is going to pull us out.

And Senator Isakson had an amendment on the Senate side. And his amendment, my colleagues, that anybody that purchased a home, it doesn't have to be a home in foreclosure, it could be one of these homes that 200, 300, $400,000 homes that are just sitting there with weeds growing in the front yard, beautiful new homes that have been in inventory for a year and a half, builders, many of them, of course, bankrupt and out of business. But if any homeowner purchased a new home, they would get a $15,000 refundable tax credit. And it would not have to be paid back. And of course that amendment was welcomed with open arms on the Senate side, as I understand. I think it may have been approved by voice vote.

And now, all of a sudden, maybe it's they're suspecting that the Senator cannot, in good conscience, support this overall package. I'm not really sure. But his amendment is pulled out. And I get a notice of that, Mr. Speaker, when I'm looking at the fact that the conferees have come to an agreement on this $789.5 billion, and Senator Isakson's amendment is gone and we've receded to the House version, which is a pittance in comparison and, quite honestly, not nearly enough to stimulate the housing market.

You know, Mr. Speaker, and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, let's speak frank on occasion. The meddlesome activity of this Congress, and maybe former administrations caused the problem that we're in. It caused the subprime loan crisis. It turned renters into homeowners when they had poor credit, they had no money to pay down, not a bit. They didn't have to verify their income. They didn't even have to verify they had a job. And then the thinking was, well, it doesn't matter, because the houses are going to appreciate in value, and they can pull the equity out. And you know, we've got this never- ending, wonderful cycle heading for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Well, all of a sudden that bubble burst, and now we're in a terrible situation. But that what started it all. That's what started it all, Mr. Speaker.

And it seems to me, and I'm sure my colleague will agree with me, that if we address the housing crisis with a bold amendment, it should maybe now should be a stand-alone bill that Senator Johnny Isakson has presented, and we take a spending bill, a true stimulus spending bill with a major emphasis, as Representative Bachmann has just pointed out, on tax relief, tax relief for men and women who are paying taxes at every marginal rate, and certainly for these small businessmen and women who bear the brunt of the taxation, and create most of the jobs, if we combine those two things with maybe some targeted, meaningful infrastructure spending for the 50 States that are struggling, many of them here in town this week, and I understand their needs, then I could support that and I could support it with enthusiasm and I think you could see bipartisan support.

But this bill, it became just a wish list for the Democratic majority for things, Mr. Speaker, that they've been wanting to do under regular order for years and couldn't do it. I mean, I can enumerate and I can point out certain things and it would make you laugh if it didn't make you sick. But did it have anything to do truly with creating jobs? I say no. And that's why I said no when I voted.

By the way, Mr. Speaker, before I yield back to my colleague from Minnesota, we did have a bipartisan vote on the floor of this House of Representatives. We, indeed had a bipartisan vote. We had 11 Democrats joining 178 Republicans voting ``no.'' We did not have one single Republican voting ``yes.'' So the bipartisan vote was the ``no'' vote because I think you've got wise men and women on both sides of the aisle that realize that this is not the way to go.

And I yield back to my colleague.

Reclaiming my time, yes, there is no question about it. As for many of these companies--international companies and United States domestic companies that might have an offshore location-- the reason they don't bring their profits back into the United States and bring their employment bases as well is due to this tax burden that Representative Bachmann just pointed out in regard to--I think she is right--the industrialized countries. We may have the second highest corporate tax rate of any country. Of course, then you add State and local. So no wonder we're struggling.

But I will yield back, and we will continue this very, very important discussion.

Reclaiming my time, I am going to finish up on this very important subject, Mr. Speaker. I want to save some time for the other issue that I want to discuss, and I hope Representative Bachmann will be able to stay with me for a little while longer because I know this is something that is very near and dear to her heart as well.

In conclusion, when the Democrats--Mr. Speaker, your party--took control in the 110th Congress and when Madam Speaker became the first female Speaker in the history of this body, it was an exciting time. I think we were all excited. Obviously, we Republicans would have preferred the Speaker to be our minority leader, John Boehner, but certainly we had to tip our hat to Nancy Pelosi for that historic occasion. You could not ignore her words and what she had said and what her promises were, particularly during the campaign in 2006 that led up to that historic win and to the new Democratic majority:

It is going to be a new day. It is not going to be the same old bipartisan stuff. We are going to make sure the minority has an opportunity to participate. We have been in the minority for 12 years, and it has been a little painful. We feel like we have been shut out. We have not been able to have amendments. There have been too many closed rules, and there have been too many bills brought to the floor without going through the regular process, without going through subcommittee and committee and the Rules Committee and without amendments made in order and without giving Members on both sides of the aisle, who might not have been on the committee of jurisdiction, an opportunity to weigh in.

That is the right way. That is the way, Mr. Speaker, that I and Michele Bachmann and everybody in this Chamber discuss it with our youngsters, whether they're from middle school, high school or whether they're in their first year of college, when we're talking about government and civics and about how things are done.

Speaking of process, I want to take just a minute and describe the comparison now in the way we Republicans did an energy bill back in 2005--in fact,

the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Listen to this, Mr. Speaker:

Hearings and subcommittee markups. The Energy and Commerce Committee held eight public hearings and six subcommittee markups, consuming 29 hours and 10 minutes of public consideration, followed by the full committee markup. The full markup consumed a total of 24 hours during which time 86 amendments were considered. I am sure 86 amendments were not just from one side of the aisle. Then there was the conference committee on this bill.

In advance of the formal conference committee meeting, Representative Joe Barton, the gentleman from Texas, who was the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Representative John Dingell, the distinguished gentleman from Michigan whom we honored today because of his longevity and wonderful service to this body, were on the conference committee. There was a Democratic Senator and a Republican Senator, and they actually met. Now, this was not a faux pas conference committee. This was a real committee. They met eleven times for a total of 23 hours to create the basic text of legislation that would then be presented to the full conference committee.

Finally, the formal House-Senate conference committee included Members from multiple House and Senate committees. It conducted five public sessions in the cavernous Energy and Commerce main hearing room during which 90 amendments were debated over a total of 20 hours.

Now compare that to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. This bill, this conference report that we're going to vote on tomorrow and that the Senate will vote on Friday: Hearings? Subcommittee markups? No hearings. No subcommittee markups. Full committee markup. The Energy and Commerce Committee spent 12 hours and considered 56 amendments. Three Republican amendments were made in order by the committee only to be immediately pulled out by the Speaker, so none of those amendments were made in order. The conference committee? Our ranking member, Joe Barton, who included Mr. Dingell on his conference committee for the energy bill that I talked about in 2005, was not even on the committee. He was not even on the committee. Where is the bipartisanship?

So the Speaker, I guess, and the Senate majority leader met in private to rewrite this stimulus package to come up with this final number. A total of two House Republicans were appointed to the conference committee, neither of them from the Energy and Commerce Committee, and I'm sure neither of them were called to any meeting. They were probably asked to sign the final conference report, which I fully trust that they did not.

Of course, in conclusion, I will say, Mr. Speaker, that the process part of it is annoying and degrading. It is demeaning. It is disrespectful. It is hurtful to our constituents and to 48 percent of the American people. It does not help at all when the President of the United States says, hey, there was an election last November--and guess what? I won. Well, if that is the spirit of bipartisanship, I will have none of it. I want none of it. That is not exactly what I had in mind nor had any of my colleagues.

Well, let me take a breath because I want to talk to you tonight, my colleagues, about something else that is troubling me.

I said this at the outset. I was in church this past Sunday morning when our parish priest said to the parishioners--and I don't know whether my parish priest is a Republican or a Democrat. I have absolutely no idea. I know some of my pastors in the past have been Democrat because they've told me I am the only Republican they've ever voted for. So they weren't playing partisan politics from the pulpit.

The parishioners at mass were asked to contact their House Member or their two Senators about something that was of great concern to the church community, and that was something called the Freedom of Choice Act. I know my colleague from Minnesota is very familiar with this. The bill was introduced in the last Congress, and my parish priest fears that it will be introduced again.

What alerts them? What is their concern? Well, the concern is that President Obama, who is pro-choice, has already rescinded something called the Mexico City Policy.

Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, you all know what I'm talking about. The Mexico City Policy is a policy that we have had in place for the last 8 years. It was in place under President Reagan; it was rescinded by President Clinton, and now it has been rescinded by President Obama.

That policy prohibited any Federal tax dollars that went to international non-government organizations through our foreign aid appropriations bill. It prevented any money going to any of these organizations involving family planning activities if they performed or referred or advised for abortion knowing full well that most Americans don't want their hard-earned tax dollars to be spent on abortion, particularly overseas.

And now President Obama has rescinded that policy. That money can be spent in that way.

President Obama has also stated that he is going to rescind President Bush's restriction on using Federal dollars to destroy human life in the form of embryos at fertility clinics for the sole purpose of harvesting stem cells. I think that was a very good decision that President Bush made back in the summer of 2001 shortly before 9/11 because it's not necessary. And that's what I've argued with my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, repeatedly.

The science has brought us to the point now where we can get stem cells, adult stem cells, from many, many sources. We can get plural potential cells, and the success rate has been with harvesting those cells and not the cells that have been obtained from destroying human life.

So this bill that was introduced in the last Congress called the Freedom of Choice Act, says this, Mr. Speaker, and I want my colleagues to listen very carefully: ``Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that it is a policy of the United States that every woman has a fundamental right to choose to bear a child, also the fundamental right to terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability, or to terminate a pregnancy after fetal viability when necessary to protect the life or the health of the woman, and to restrict any State or local government from putting any limits on that whatsoever.''

So that means basically, Mr. Speaker, that a woman at any stage of pregnancy--I mean, carrying an 8-month baby--could terminate that pregnancy.

Now, we have laws in the State of Georgia that say after the period of viability, a pregnancy cannot be terminated without two additional consenting physicians to verify that this is an extreme medical necessity.

But this would take any ability, any power of any State, away from them, and the Federal Government will say a woman has a right to choose. That right includes not only to terminate her pregnancy in the first trimester, not only to terminate her pregnancy in the second trimester, but even in the third trimester when you're talking about maybe even a 6-pound child if someone just says, ``Well, you know, we're doing this because we're concerned about the health of the mother.''

And the health of the mother can be a case of panic attack, a sleep disorder, an episode of anxiety, you know. So we are very concerned about that.

And I wanted to ask my colleague from Minnesota to be with me tonight to help bring this issue, Mr. Speaker, to our colleagues to really kind of tug at your heart strings and at your conscience and help you to understand that we--it looks like that we may be heading in that direction. God forbid, Mr. Speaker, it looks like with the policies that have been enacted thus far in the pronouncements of the new President, that we may be headed in that direction.

I'd like to yield to my colleague on this.

Reclaiming my time just for a second because I had a little difficulty pulling up the bill.

But this is what Representative Bachmann is talking about, and this is what the bill says. ``A government may not''--a government may not-- ``number 1, deny or interfere with a woman's right to choose, (a) to bear a child, (b) to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability''--that's probably about 24 weeks of life--or (c) to terminate a pregnancy after 24 weeks of life, viability, ``where termination is necessary to protect the life or the health of the woman.''

And then it goes on to say a government may not ``discriminate against the exercise of these rights set forth'' in that paragraph ``in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information.''

Just like the gentlelady from Minnesota was talking about. Let them see an ultrasound. Why not? It's being taken anyway. Why shouldn't they have the opportunity to see it?

Well, I want to thank, first of all, my colleague for being with me this evening. Two important issues. I thank Mr. Speaker for his indulgence.

Let's be thinking, men and women, and ask God for the wisdom of Socrates as we debate and make decisions on these terribly important issues facing our Nation and our people.

With that, I yield back my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 7 o'clock and 55 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, February 12, 2009, at 10 a.m.

Madam Speaker, in celebration of Black History Month, I want to recognize African Americans from throughout Georgia's 11th Congressional District who have had a major impact on their community.

Today, I rise to honor Winston Strickland of Marietta, Georgia. Winston, known to most Cobb County residents as ``Strick,'' has been a cornerstone of the business community for more than 40 years. Marietta residents have likely frequented one of Winston Strickland's establishments--including Strick's Barber Shop, Strick's Grill, as well as his successful Laundromat.

In addition to Winston Strickland's many accomplishments in the business world, he has also had a major impact on the youth of his community in helping to found the Cobb organization of Blacks United for Youth. This community organization builds positive relationships between young people and officials in the school system and in the business community through mentorship programs and the Leadership Academy. The organization has provided more than $100,000 in college scholarships to local youth.

Last year, Blacks United for Youth honored Strickland by renaming their annual Making a Difference Award the ``Winston M. Strickland `Making a Difference' Award.'' Strickland has also been honored as the Citizen of the Year by the Alpha Phi Alpha and Omega Psi Phi fraternities.

Winston Strickland strives to be a man of peace who helps others, and he is a role model for the community. He is one who, through his commitment to God, family and community service, can help bridge the gap between those in need and those who are willing and able to provide assistance.

I ask that my colleagues join me in thanking Winston M. Strickland for his leadership and service to Cobb County and for his commitment to improving his community.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I stand in opposition to H.R. 1, and I can stand here and talk about specific line items in the bill that were first presented to us in the House, not a whole lot different from what's coming over from the Senate, but the bottom line is that we on this side of the aisle have an alternative that would do a whole lot better, and I don't think I can say it any better than comparing my own State of Georgia.

The Republican alternative would create 186,000 jobs in the State of Georgia. This bill would create 113,000. That's a difference of 73,000 jobs, and we do it, Madam Speaker, with much less spending, in fact less than half of the spending that's in this current bill. And we do it by making sure that the tax cuts are directed towards small businessmen and -women and, of course, lowering the capital gains and the tax on dividends.

So we get money in the hands of the people immediately, 5 percent cut in taxes across-the-board, every marginal rate, and last but not least, Madam Speaker, to cut spending 1 percent across the board, with the exception, of course, of national defense.

I've heard President Obama and others say, you know, we need to do something right now; don't just stand there, do something. But this clearly is a time that we need to take a deep breath and make sure that we do the right thing because the downside risk of adding $1.2 trillion worth of debt to a 10.7 current debt, I don't know how our children and grandchildren will ever pay for this, and the chances of it being successful are slim and none in my opinion.

I'm opposed to it. I think we can do better.

And I thank the gentleman from Missouri for yielding. And I thank my colleague from Georgia, Dr. Broun, for his timely and insightful comments.

It's good to join with you this hour, Mr. Speaker, to try to shed some light on this issue, a terribly important issue to the American people when we're in these rather dire economic circumstances. But the big problem, of course Representative Akin and Representative Broun, Mr. Speaker, spent time explaining how we got into this mess. And I think it's very important that they did this and kind of set the stage for where we are today, why we're here, how we got there, what the problem is and basically, who's to blame. And certainly, if you do the math, connect the dots, it's pretty clear. I won't go back through that important information.

But we're now trying to decide, Mr. Speaker, what to do about it, how to get out of this recession that we're in. And unfortunately, what the Democratic majority and what President Obama has recommended, I just don't think passes the smell test. I really feel that the likelihood of this being successful, when you look, Mr. Speaker, at the spending in this bill, this economic stimulus bill as it's called, where's the beef? I mean, the old expression--I don't see where there's anything or hardly anything in $825 billion that's going to do a whole lot of stimulating.

Well, if the gentleman will yield to me again and I appreciate it. He said it exactly right. It is the Pelosi proposal, the Democratic majority proposal, the Harry Reid proposal. But it's certainly not the Congressional proposal, because we Republicans, Mr. Speaker, are part of that mix. And as the gentleman from Missouri points out, we were never consulted. There was no essentially no markup, no regular order.

And as Representative Akin says, the importance of getting it right-- you know, some people use the expression for goodness sake, don't just sit there, do something. Well, I happen to be a doctor too, an OB/GYN doctor, and I know a lot of times it's better to not just do something, sit there. The baby will come.

But we're not recommending though that we do nothing, Mr. Speaker. We're just saying that when you've got a bill with 825, more in the Senate, billions of dollars in it, it needs to stimulate the economy for sure. And it needs to put people back to work for sure, not just maybe.

And as the gentleman from Missouri said, we could make matters far worse than they were in the late 70s under President Jimmy Carter, and we could even get as bad as it was back in 1929, 30, 31, 32, so we want to get it right.

And if the gentleman will bear with me just for a minute, I would appreciate it. I wanted to show a poster or two to just to kind of put the spending, the so-called stimulus, in perspective. And if my colleagues will look at this first poster, and the question at the top says, can you afford to pay for the Democratic spending bill? And basically, at $825 billion, the economic stimulus plan that's sailing through Congress would cost each American family more than $10,000 on average. More than $10,000. In fact $10,500.

Exactly. If the gentleman will yield further. Exactly that's what I'm saying. And to put that in more perspective, the average family, for food, clothing and health care, an expensive line item in the family budget, food, clothing and health care, they spend $10,400 and for shelter, $11,600. Fully a third of that cost is what we're putting on their backs.

Listen, colleagues on both sides of the aisle, wouldn't we be better off just giving every family in America a check for $3,000? And we could probably end up doing it a whole lot cheaper than $825 billion. And by golly, that would work.

So that's what we're trying to do here tonight, Mr. Speaker, is just point out that there's a better way of doing this. We, in the Republican minority, who have not been included, not been asked except asked to vote for this thing, no questions asked, no amendments, we do have a better idea. And I know as we get further into the hour tonight, Mr. Speaker, we'll be talking about that. And I will look forward to that opportunity. I will yield back to the gentleman. I know there's others here on the floor that would like to speak on this issue.

I very much appreciate the gentleman's yielding. I thank him for that. I do have a chart I want to reference.

First of all, Mr. Speaker, I want to say that the American people are beginning to realize that this is unlikely to work and that there is a tremendous burden that it is going to put on them. As I pointed out on the previous chart, it is $10,400 per family. Now, they don't get that. That is not any money that comes to them. That is the debt burden.

Now, in fact, in a recent Gallup Poll--the very reliable Gallup Poll. Everybody has heard of Gallup--there was a survey of 1,000 adult people nationwide; thirty-eight percent were in opposition to this bill as proposed, and another 17 percent said no matter what they do with it, no matter what changes they make, this is not the way to go. It is just as Secretary Morgenthau knew back in 1939. I wish Secretary Paulson and Secretary Geithner could understand that. Just throwing more money at this indiscriminately is not going to solve the problem. It is just going to sink us deeper and deeper into a recession and possibly even into a depression.

So, yes, we have some ideas, and of course, my colleagues are here, and they are going to present some of these ideas.

I want to yield back to the gentleman from Missouri, but let me quickly reference the poster.

``Sizing up the Stimulus'' is the title of the poster. Again, just to put this into perspective, the proposed stimulus is $1.2 trillion when you include the debt service over 10 years. So it's $825 billion and then the debt service. Then you compare that to other expenditures, to very important expenditures--to the Vietnam War, which was $111 billion with a B, not a T; to the invasion of Iraq, which was $551 billion with a B, not a T; and to the New Deal. We were referencing that, and that is what Mr. Morgenthau was talking about. It was $32 billion, and he said it was way too much spending, and here we're talking about $1.2 trillion.

Again, I think it would be better to cut taxes for everybody. We'll get into that later. I know the gentleman will do that, and maybe we'll give everybody a check for $2,500 rather than what we are doing.

So I yield back to the gentleman, and I thank him for the time.

I want to thank my colleague, Representative David Scott, for allowing me to say a few words also about Reverend Jim Higgins, as we have the privilege of really sharing him in our two adjoining

districts. And, as David Scott has said, Madam Speaker, Dr. Reverend Major Jim Higgins, as we know, has brought us a very inspiring message as we open business today in the United States House of Representatives as our guest chaplain of the day.

But, as Representative Scott said, his service to us and to his constituents in Powder Springs and to our country goes much beyond just the spiritual. When you think about his service as a chaplain in the United States Army and, as David Scott was just saying, his service in Vietnam, and his tour of duties, Madam Speaker, of 18 months.

Now, today, the Marines limit rotation to 7 months and the Army to 12 months. But Jim Higgins' rotation in Vietnam--a pretty tough place--was 18 months. Of course, he has this week, as has been said, been recognized as the United States Military Reserve Chaplain of the Year.

So we really are indebted to this great man, not only for his spiritual leadership, Jim, but great service to your country.

Madam Speaker, I do rise in strong opposition to this closed rule, as well as the underlying legislation, the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009.

The Democratic majority has once again brought forward a closed rule that only tramples on the rights of the minority. And at no point in the development of this legislation has the majority even entertained the idea of allowing Republicans to work with them in a bipartisan manner to improve the bill.

As a physician Member, I keenly know how important it is that the Federal Government plays a role in providing health care to low-income children. At the same time, we must pass legislation that first reaches those who are most in need of this assistance.

During the initial consideration of H.R. 2 by the House, I offered an amendment that would have addressed a very important problem within current law that H.R. 2 overlooks, the practice of some States using loopholes to allow people to disregard significant portions of their income to make them eligible for CHIP and Medicaid. At the same time, some of these same States, these loophole States, have not provided for the children who demonstrate the most need for these programs.

Madam Speaker, my commonsense amendment would have simply instituted a gross income cap of 250 percent of the Federal poverty level for both CHIP and Medicaid eligibility, and it would limit any income disregards to a maximum of $250 a month or $3,000 per year. This amendment would grandfather in those individuals who are already receiving Medicaid and CHIP so that we do not deprive current beneficiaries.

Therefore, Madam Speaker, I urge all my colleagues oppose the closed rule.

I want to just in closing, Madam Speaker, urge all my colleagues, oppose the closed rule and this underlying legislation. Give us a chance, in a bipartisan spirit, to make this good law even better.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding, and I regretfully rise to oppose H.R. 2, not because I oppose the original legislation--which I think the bill was a very good bill and as a physician Member and a compassion for wanting to extend health care to our children--my concern with the bill with the reauthorization is that it doesn't really limit it to those children that need it the most, those, say, under 200 percent or between 100 and 200 percent of the Federal poverty level. This new bill actually allows that to go up to 300 percent.

But, Madam Speaker, there is an even bigger problem. This is a situation that some States use called--well, they're loopholes, really, and they call them income disregards. I think there are about 13 States, Madam Speaker, who utilize that loophole that just simply says to couples or families, If you're not eligible, that is, you make more than 300 percent of the Federal poverty level--well, what is that, about $65,000 a year for a family of 4--then we will just simply disregard the income that you make between 300 and 400 percent of the Federal poverty level and say, We're not going to count that. Let's count--a wink, wink, wink, nod, smoke and mirrors, shell game--not count a certain block of income.

And I had an amendment--which I thought was a very good amendment; unfortunately it's a closed rule--but this amendment would simply say that there will be income disregards only in the amount of a maximum of $3,000 a year or $250 a month. Only income disregards may be something like childcare or something of that sort.

But to completely disregard, that's where we get into this crowd-out situation, Madam Speaker, where people whose children are already covered in the private market, they're going to drop that, clearly they're going to drop it even though they can afford it so they can get on the government dole. And as was pointed out earlier, a lot of physicians are not going to take the SCHIP patient because of the reimbursement.

I thank my ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee for his generosity. He knows that this Georgia brogue is a little bit slow.

But clearly it makes no sense, it makes no sense to crowd them out and put them into this program and then physicians are going to be less inclined to provide the service because their reimbursement under SCHIP or Medicaid is probably 30 percent less than it is in the private market.

So while in trying to enroll more children and help more children, I think, unfortunately, you're going to get less coverage and less service for those children.

So again, that was a good amendment. I'm sorry I didn't have a chance, Madam Speaker, to offer it. I think we could have made a good bill a whole lot better.

And for that reason, I'm going to oppose this bill.