Floor Statements

I reserve the balance of my time.

It is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert).

I would ask the gentleman, does he have any additional speakers?

Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, Republicans are for good disclosure, open disclosure, easy-to-read disclosure. We are for responsible lending. We are also for making sure that the American people have low-cost mortgage choices.

What we are not for is a legislation that limits those choices, that chokes a very fragile credit market and increases the cost of credit for American families all across this country.

One of the things that is most important to American families today is, you know, the cash flow piece of it. And what we are going to do now is put so many restrictions on this market that people are going to build into that a cost for mortgages, and so mortgage rates are going to go up, choices are going to go down.

And with this legislation, I am afraid we may never see a secondary market that was as good and as fruitful for mortgage lending as the previous one we had. That's the reason I am going to encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this legislation. We can do better than that. We do not have to shut down the mortgage market, but we can make for responsible lending.

Madam Chair, I claim time in opposition, but I am not opposed to the amendment.

I want to thank the gentleman.

We had a tremendous amount of discussion about the pay-to-pay provision in this bill. One of the things that we don't want to do is to prevent the cardholders' ability to be able to make payments by telephone or by other means. However, a number of these companies have invested a lot of money in the technology to allow consumers to be able to pay their credit cards in different ways and thereby avoid late fees.

A concern that many of us had was, if we somehow regulated and denied the ability completely of credit card companies to be able to charge a fee for this service, that they would discontinue it. We felt like that might even cost consumers more money because they would be charged late fees and interest.

I also appreciate the gentleman in that, I think, all of us believe that disclosure is an important part of making credit card use a better tool for consumers, and I'm glad to see that the gentleman also has some additional disclosure provisions in here as to the size of the type. So I think this particular amendment makes the overall bill better, and I thank the gentleman for his amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, it is my privilege at this time to yield so much time as he may consume to my good friend from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

I have no further speakers, and I yield back my time.

Madam Chair, I rise to claim time in opposition, but I'm not opposed to the amendment.

At this time, I would like to yield such time as he may consume to my good friend from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Madam Chairman, I just want to reiterate what my friend from Texas said is that we do need to make sure we understand the intended and unintended consequences of this legislation and how it's going to impact consumers who use credit cards.

Like the gentleman from Texas, I'm disappointed that we're going to wait for 2 years to get those results, but I do think it's important that the agencies involved here make sure that if we have gone down a road that has a negative impact on the people that use our credit cards and depend on them, we need to know about that.

With that, I yield back.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, at this time, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished ranking member, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus).

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

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

I think one of the concerns I have is this is a road we seem to be going down every day in these first hundred days, and that is the Federal Government telling people what they can and cannot do. I was shocked this week when the EPA administrator Lisa Jackson told public radio that it was time for America to have a single roadmap and for the government to tell Americans what kind of cars they ought to be driving. Now we have an amendment here that's going to tell college students whether they can have a credit card or not.

This is not the America that our Founding Fathers founded. They founded this Nation on empowerment and they founded it on the basis of freedom of choice, and now we're taking choices away. And like the gentleman from Texas just said, my wife and I put ourselves through college. We felt like we were fairly responsible. We weren't getting student loans, we were working. From time to time we needed a little extra help, and we were able to use our gasoline credit card or our credit card for unforeseen expenses. Now we're telling people 18-21 the government doesn't think you ought to have a credit card or you're not responsible enough to have a credit card.

So now we have an amendment that says, By the way, we're not going to teach you how to use your credit appropriately. We're just going to take your credit away.

Anybody that knows what challenges that young people in college are facing today would know that this is not a good thing for these young people. Many of them are working their way through school and they use this credit card as a valuable tool. Ranking Member Bachus said 77 percent of students and universities are using these cards. Not all of them are using them irresponsibly.

So now for those people that feel like that somehow there's predatory activities going on, we're going to take that right away.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, the bill itself I think reached a compromise on this issue as well as the Federal regulations that came out about this, and basically it allows it to prorate that. So if there were an introductory period where the interest rate was lower and then later on that introductory period passed, it was fair to prorate the payments between the two rates, the old rate and the new rate. This one now allows the payment to be applied to the introductory rate. And thereby, I think what it is going to do--and again, we talk about choice. It is going to continue to restrict the kinds of cards and choices that the American people are going to be able to use and look at and be given from the various credit card companies. And so I am opposed to this.

At this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

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

We do not claim any time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, we have no opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, here we go again taking choices away from the people that use credit cards, a very valuable tool for their personal finances. Just imagine, you are at a banquet or someplace and you give the maitre d' your credit card. Now you go over there and they put the credit card in, and it comes back rejected.

And you face the embarrassment of that, and you have called the credit company and you find out, well, you didn't opt into a service that we provide, and so we don't provide you the opportunity to go over your line of credit. You said, Well, how much was I over my line of credit? Well, I was over by $4.

What we find today, according to the American Bankers Association, 99 percent of the people opt in or avoid opting out because they like that valuable service that they have.

So, again, what we would have here is a situation where people may not even know that this service is available to them. Maybe they are making their utility bill payment and they find out that their card was rejected because they didn't have this service. It's 2 or 3 weeks before they get a notice from their utility company and find out that their utilities are about to be shut off.

Now, this is a system that is really not broken. In fact, the Federal Reserve, in their study, when they looked at these regulations, looked at that issue, decided to leave it alone, found out it was working extremely well.

Again, we are micromanaging this process. And the big losers aren't going to be the credit card companies, who, I think, as a lot of people are trying to attack with this bill, the big losers are going to be the consumers that rely on that very valuable service.

So I am in strong opposition to the gentlewoman's amendment and urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

I reserve the balance of my time.

May I inquire how much time I have remaining.

I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, Mr. President, I think it's time to listen to the American people. I recently received a letter from one of my constituents. They said, ``I have a job, a family, a mortgage and, yes, I have indulged in the credit card mess, but my husband and I have been working diligently over the last 13 months to reduce our debt. My husband took on a

part-time job to help in the matter. I have also gone back to college to further my education.

``Our lives are crazy with work, school, family, teenagers and obligations, yet we manage to pay our bills and make sure Uncle Sam receives his fair share. We have scaled back luxury items to achieve the goal of one day being debt free. We have a budget for our personal finances, and when the money is gone, we stop spending.

``The idea of Congress and our President has of spending money that does not exist is absolutely insane. What kind of message are we sending to our children when our government cannot even balance its own budget and abide by it?''

Madam Speaker, Mr. President, listen to the American people: Stop this spending.

Mr. Chairman, I guess we could call this a Big Government week because we're going to roll out a big budget, it has big deficits, increases our national deficit to a larger number, going to bring out big tax increases.

But you know, a lot of discussion has been had about all of the things that the Federal Government's involving themselves in. And the word ``outrage'' keeps coming up. And many of us were outraged about the level of the bonuses that we found out were being paid at AIG. I think what--more than an outrage about bonuses I think the American people are outraged at the level of money that's being invested of their hard-earned taxpayer money into these entities. We find out that now the American people are investors in banks, insurance companies, probably soon to be in the automobile business; and in fact, you're going to get an extended warranty from the United States Government. And what people are wondering and are outraged about is, when does this Big Government, Big Brother, when is the end of this train?

One of the concerns that I have is that we now have--people were outraged about GSEs, and now we have TSEs, and that's taxpayer- supported entities. And people that used to get outraged in this body because we were trying to listen in on foreign enemies, worried about their individual rights--and now we have no problem, though, for the United States Government to start determining what is reasonable compensation in this country.

Am I outraged about the bonuses? I am more outraged that we would relegate to government and to government employees for them to sit down and determine whether that is a reasonable compensation. People say. Well, this is only foreign entities that we've invested capital into. But, you know, that's always the way policy gets started in this country. It starts

off with a little bit of a foot in the door and pretty soon, the gorilla is completely in the room.

So down the road, if I am a small businessman and I have an SBA loan, for example, I am wondering if at some point in time the SBA calls up and says, You know what? You're taking too big a salary out of your company so we're going to set a reasonable set salary for you. What does that do to entrepreneurialism in this country? What about people that are participating in other government programs? Is the government then going to start saying, Well, we've looked and we know that you have got a contract. So you're one of the small business contractors that has a government contract. And, you know, we've looked at your IRS records and you're making a lot of money off of that contract. We think maybe we ought to renegotiate that contract because you're making too much money.

Now, that sounds farfetched, but I would guarantee you if we were to roll back this conversation a year ago and you would tell the American people that they are going to own banks, they are going to own insurance companies, that they are going to own automobile companies, that they are going to have over $5 or $6 trillion of their money committed to these entities, people would have laughed about it. But this is really no laughing matter, Mr. Chairman. This is serious.

This government, this country was founded on the principles of individualism, empowerment and not for government to be big. In fact, there are tea parties occurring all across this country because people are outraged about this. The same outrage that over 230, 240 years ago people were outraged at how the King was treating the colonists in this land called America. And they were tired of the King telling them what they could do, how much money they could make, and who was privileged and who was not privileged. And yet we're now starting down that same trail with this bill today.

What should have happened here is that we should have taken a reasonable amount of time to determine how this money was going to be distributed, term sheets should have been put together if we're going to invest American taxpayers' money, we ought to know exactly what that money is going to be used for, how it's going to be used. If we want to limit salaries, you do that before you pass out the money.

But that is all really a smokescreen. What the conversation and debate in all of this time that we ought to be using today is we ought to be talking about how are we going to get the American taxpayers' money back. People want to focus on the bonuses, and they messed up, they cut a deal with the White House in the middle of the night, had people put things in the bill to cover them so that they didn't have to lose face. You know, the $170 million in bonuses is a big deal, but let me tell you what a big deal is $170 billion in money that we invested in AIG.

Mr. Chairman, let's return America back to the American people. Let's not infringe upon their rights, let's not start down the road where government starts telling us how much money we can make, what we will do with our money. And I urge the people to vote against this bill.

Mr. Speaker, hardworking Americans across this country are trimming their budgets and finding ways to save and make sacrifices. In these tough economic times the Federal Government should be held to that same standard.

During a time of economic instability, we cannot start raising taxes to pay for more government spending. Unfortunately, that's exactly what the President has proposed in his budget that he has submitted to Congress. The administration proposes to raise taxes $1.4 trillion over the next 10 years, which includes taxes on small businesses, the backbone of our economy.

Let's be clear about what $1 trillion is. If you started counting to $1 trillion, 1, 2, 3, it would only take you 31,708 years to count to 1 trillion. Yet we are talking about $1.3 trillion in new taxes.

The American taxpayers deserve a better plan for individuals and small businesses. We must empower American individuals and families. The road to economic recovery is paved with healthy small business communities creating jobs and opportunity.

Congress and the administration should focus on solutions that empower individuals and businesses to succeed in the economy, rather than solutions that spend too much, borrow too much and tax too much.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the House Republican standards on Congressional directed spending items, I am submitting the following information for publication in the Congressional Record regarding spending directed to Texas' 19th Congressional District as a result of requests made by those I represent:

Sponsoring Member: Congressman Randy Neugebauer

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account: Department of Agriculture, Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service: $1,730,000

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Texas Tech University and Texas A&M University

Address of Requesting Entity: 2500 Broadway, Lubbock, TX 79409 and College Station, TX 77843

Description of Request: The cotton research funding will be used for study of genomics and genetic manipulation to increase yield and fiber quality, determination of economic factors affecting profitability and understanding of cotton marketing forces, study of the integrated effects of world market and policy program and development of new textile testing and manufacturing technologies. Accomplishments of this continuing research, which is authorized as a High Priority Research and Extension Area, include (1) plant density and irrigation findings that conserve water and enhance producer profitability by $37 million, (2) genetic enhancements that increase fiber value and (3) analysis of cotton markets, trade and farm policy proposals to determine economic impacts on producers.

Sponsoring Member: Congressman Randy Neugebauer

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account: Department of Agriculture, Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service: $946,000

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Texas Tech University, Center for Food Industry Excellence

Address of Requesting Entity: 2500 Broadway, Lubbock, TX 79409

Description of Request: The Center for Food Industry Excellence will use funds to determine the impact of packaging systems on the food safety and quality of meat and poultry products, investigate antimicrobial drug resistance in animal production and continue to study pre- and post-harvest interventions to determine control measures for food-borne pathogens in the food supply. The Center's research has already resulted in a pre-harvest food safety intervention that is currently being fed to 60% of feedlot cattle in the U.S., evaluation of meat packaging systems that have improved the safety and quality of meats and poultry and updated data on nutritional composition of poultry for use by USDA and nutritional labeling.

Sponsoring Member: Congressman Randy Neugebauer

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account: Department of Agriculture, Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service: $515,000

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Texas Tech University, Kansas State University and Texas A&M University

Address of Requesting Entity: 2500 Broadway, Lubbock, TX 79409; Manhattan, KS 66506; College Station, TX 77843.

Description of Request: The Great Plains Sorghum Improvement Center integrates research efforts at three universities with sorghum expertise. Kansas State University leads efforts in agronomic sorghum research and development of new uses for sorghum. Texas Tech leads market and policy analysis work, and Texas A&M focuses on efficient sorghum cropping and production strategies. Research in FY09 will focus on genetics and plant breeding to enhance sorghum as a bioenergy feedstock, developing more sustainable cropping systems and developing new uses for grain sorghum.

Sponsoring Member: Congressman Randy Neugebauer

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account: Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Research Service Salaries and Expenses: $1,474,000

Legal Name of Recipient Entity: USDA-ARS Cropping Systems Research Laboratory

Address of Recipient Entity: 3810 Fourth Street, Lubbock, TX 79415.

Description of Request: The Administration's FY09 budget request to Congress proposed to eliminate funding for two research programs at the ARS Cropping Systems Research Lab in Lubbock. This request allows continued funding of the Lab's sorghum cold tolerance research ($246,000), which is leading to a better understanding of how drought tolerance functions in sorghum and screening techniques to assist plant breeders in rapidly identifying and moving those genes into improved germplasm. The request also allows continued funding of the Lab's Cotton Production and Processing Unit ($1,228,000). The Unit is the only ARS facility that works on quality issues related to mechanical stripper cotton. The Unit also has a particulate matter analysis lab used to support USDA air quality work.

Sponsoring Member: Congressman Randy Neugebauer

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account: Environmental Protection Agency, State and Tribal Assistance Grants: $200,000

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: City of Lubbock, TX

Address of Requesting Entity: 1635 13th Street, Lubbock, Texas 79457

Description of Request: These federal funds, along with a 45% match from the City of Lubbock, will be used for engineering costs to enable the city to move forward with constructing a terminal water storage reservoir and a membrane water treatment plant southeast of Lubbock, which will allow the City to make use of an additional water source to replace declining water supply. Projections indicate Lubbock, and the surrounding rural communities its water system serves, will need this water by 2012. This project's total cost is $46 million and also includes new pipeline and pump stations; a majority of funding for the project comes from state and local sources.

Sponsoring Member: Congressman Randy Neugebauer

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, General Investigations: $163,000

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: City of Abilene, TX

Address of Requesting Entity: PO Box 60, Abilene, TX 79604

Recipient Entity: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Fort Worth District located at 819 Taylor Street, Fort Worth, TX 76102

Description of Request: Flooding along Elm Creek in Abilene has resulted in federal disaster declarations, most recently in 2002 with $6.3 million in damages to residences. Abilene has partnered with the Corps on a study of flood mitigation options. Of the total $1.7 million cost, Abilene has contributed 50% of the costs, and the Corp committed to provide 50%. Prior to FY09, the Corps received $373,000 for this study, and this funding brings them close to their share so the study can be completed.

Sponsoring Member: Congressman Randy Neugebauer

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account: Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy: $1,903,000

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Texas Tech University's Great Plains Wind Power Test Facility

Address of Requesting Entity: 2500 Broadway, Lubbock, TX 79409

Description of Request: The Center's research focuses on: testing utility-scale wind turbines designed for use in less-energetic wind regimes; assessing the risk and effects resulting from exposure to more extreme wind events; improving wind turbine design codes; ful-scale testing of wind-driven water desalination systems and their associated economics; and developing modeling codes for combined wind-water systems. FY09 funds, along with $552,000 state of Texas funds and up to $1 million in local matching funds, will be used to design, construct, instrument, operate and monitor the technical and economic performance of an integrated wind-driven water system capable of supplying 1 million gallons/day of purified water. The module will be capable of replication for additional capacity and for adoption in other locales.

Sponsoring Member: Congressman Randy Neugebauer

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account: Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration: $238,000

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Muleshoe Area Hospital Center

Address of Requesting Entity: 708 S First Street, Muleshoe, Texas 79347

Description of Request: The Muleshoe Area Hospital Center is a Critical Access Hospital that serves a large rural area with a population of 17,000 and per capita income of $13,700. The hospital provides care to a growing Medicare population, a large number of uninsured patients and indigent patients. The hospital has one rural health clinic with one physician, and the area has three other family practice physicians in two different locations, neither of

which are rural clinics. Funding would go toward the hospital's efforts to combine the two clinics and physicians into the hospital's clinic, including expanding and renovating the existing facility and new equipment. The hospital believes that combining physicians into one clinic will provide better health care services, allow mid-level practitioners to support physicians and help recruit additional physicians to the rural area. The total project cost is $1.7 million, and the federal support will supplement local funding.

Sponsoring Member: Congressman Randy Neugebauer

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account: Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration: $190,000

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center

Address of Requesting Entity: 2500 Broadway, Lubbock, TX 79409

Description of Request: The Regional Interdisciplinary Simulation Center (RISC) at TTUHSC will provide a replica of multiple clinical settings and support the learner from student to the life-long learning needs of the expert practitioner. TTUHSC has designated approximately 30,000 square feet for the establishment of a state-of-the-art regional simulation center in response to the Institute for Medicine report, Health Professions Education: A Bridge to Quality. The center will assist the learner in developing the competencies mandatory to ensure patient safety while promoting interdisciplinary collaboration, communication, and teamwork. FY09 funds, along with TTUHSC and local matching funds, will go toward purchase of human-patient simulator to facilitate the development of clinical competencies and judgment of students and practitioners of the health sciences; the total project cost is $3 million.

Sponsoring Member: Congressman Randy Neugebauer

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account: Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration: $190,000

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center

Address of Requesting Entity: 2500 Broadway, Lubbock, TX 79409

Description of Request: The Center of the Study of Addiction and Recovery is a unique and comprehensive educational, social support and recovery service network for students in higher education who are recovering from addictive disorders or who have grown up in families impacted by addiction. A main goal of the Center is to serve as a demonstration program that can easily be replicated by other institutions of higher education. The requested funding will be used for programmatic costs, specifically to: (1) determine and maximize the most effective methods of peer delivered support and empower persons in recovery to deliver these services; (2) provide an alternative peer community that combats the current ``culture of drinking'' on college campuses; (3) pursue research collaborations to improve programs that identify and meet the needs of students in recovery; and (4) develop an effective replication strategy and organizational plan to other institutions of higher education. The Center is currently working with the University of Texas-Austin, the University of Texas-San Antonio, the University of Colorado-Boulder and Tulsa Community College to form recovery centers at those campuses modeled after the one at Texas Tech. A cost share of $369,000 in state and local funds will be used with federal funds in FY09.

Sponsoring Member: Congressman Randy Neugebauer

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account: Department of Transportation, Federal Transit Administration, Buses and Bus Facilities: $712,500

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: City of Lubbock/Citibus

Address of Requesting Entity: Citibus, PO Box 2000, Lubbock, TX 79457 (806) 712-2001

Description of Request: The buses will replace vehicles in the Citibus fleet that have exceeded their useful life. Many of the buses used for Citibus' services will be twelve years old and in need of replacement to better serve the Lubbock community. By purchasing hybrid electric buses, Citibus will be more environmentally friendly, and be less dependent on oil products; current technology electric hybrid buses will result in a 40% fuel savings over current usage. This bus purchase will be part of a multi-year Section 5309 request. Citibus would like to replace the fleet over a five year period at the rate of seven to eight buses per year.

Sponsoring Member: Congressman Randy Neugebauer

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account: Department of Transportation, Federal Transit Administration, Busses and Bus Facilities: $456,000

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: City of Abilene Paratransit

Address of Requesting Entity: City of Abilene, PO Box 60, Abilene, TX 79604

Description of Request: Abilene operates an Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant paratransit service for persons whose physical or mental disability prevents them from using the accessible fixed-route bus service. However, Abilene's ability to meet the need for paratransit service is jeopardized due to heavy usage. The City has 22 vehicles but 18 vehicles have exceeded their Federal Transit Administration useful life limits. The City requested assistance in replacing five paratransit vans to meet the transportation needs of the City's disabled population. City of Abilene will provide a cost share of $120,000 for the $600,000 total cost of this project.

Sponsoring Member: Congressman Randy Neugebauer

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account:

Department of Housing and Urban Development, Economic Development Initiatives: $142,500

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: City of Abilene

Address of Requesting Entity: City of Abilene, PO Box 60, Abilene, TX 79604

Description of Request: The Life Sciences Accelerator is a biotech facility located in a 20,000+ square foot building that will contain leased office space and laboratory facilities and research equipment to be ``time-shared'' by biotech company tenants. The Development Corporation of Abilene (DCOA), the economic development arm of the City of Abilene, has committed $4.85 million to the Accelerator, including the building and equipment--about a 95% local share. The Accelerator is part of a much larger biotech initiative by the City of Abilene/DCOA designed to diversify the regional economy through attraction of high- paying research jobs. Properly outfitted lease space is needed to attract companies that license these discoveries (intellectual property) from the new Texas Tech School of Pharmacy in Abilene and elsewhere for commercialization. These federal funds will go toward the $1 million needed for equipment for the Accelerator, such as an Amnis ImageStream imaging flow cytometer, for example, which is available at only 35 other sites in the world and will help make the Accelerator a ``world class'' research facility that attracts private investment and jobs.

Sponsoring Member: Congressman Randy Neugebauer

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account: Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Interstate Maintenance: $475,000

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: The Ports to Plains Trade Corridor

Address of Requesting Entity: 5401 N MLK Blvd., Unit 395, Lubbock, TX 79403 (806) 775-3373

Description of Request: The Ports to Plains Trade Corridor is vital to the infrastructure of West Texas and will provide increased economic growth opportunities for Texas, and a recently-completed corridor management and development plan produced by the departments of transportation of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Colorado projected that if completed, the corridor will create 40,000 new jobs with an economic impact of $4.5 billion. That will provide a benefit to cost ratio of 3:1. Big Spring is currently in the path of the federally- designated Ports-to-Plains Trade Corridor (section 1105(c) of ISTEA). While the Corridor will bring increased commerce, the increase of truck traffic will pose several safety hazards to the community. This commercial truck traffic, interspersed with community traffic along the current route, has slowed travel along this part of the Corridor. Due in most part to the grade changes and traffic signals, the increase of traffic through Big Spring threatens the safety and well-being of the city's residents. The US 87 reliever route will increase the fuel and speed efficiency when traveling US 87. The Ports-to-Plains Corridor has made significant strides in opening an alternative NAFTA trade route to the whole United States. This bypass will build on that success while resolving many safety and congestion issues.

Sponsoring Member: Congressman Randy Neugebauer

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Cross-Agency Support: $500,000

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Texas Tech University

Address of Requesting Entity: 2500 Broadway, Lubbock, TX 79409

Description of Request: The Engineering Support for Extended Human and Robotic Space Flight Missions initiative will provide engineering support for extended human & robotic space flight missions, which will directly contribute to NASA's initiative of returning to the moon and going to mars. For human and robotic missions the Center for Space Sciences is addressing the need for a decreased reliance on mission control due to the communication delays that occur in long

distance missions. For human missions the Center is also addressing the need for greater autonomy in dealing with the physical needs of the astronauts, including long term water recycling, which currently limits the habitation period possible without re-supply, and the ergonomics and human factors aspects of human performance in zero and reduced gravity environments. The major research areas will include recyclable/ renewable water resources, autonomous/renewable control systems and ergonomics/human factors crew support.

Madam Speaker, I would like to take this time to recognize A.V. Jones, Jr. for his dedication to the West Central Texas Municipal Water District. A.V. retired last year after 46 years of continuous service to the District, which includes the cities of Abilene, Albany, Anton, and Breckenridge.

A.V. Jones, Jr. was born in Wichita Falls, Texas in 1932 and moved shortly after to Albany, Texas, where he has lived ever since. After graduating from Oklahoma University with a Bachelors of Science in Petroleum Geology, A.V. settled in Albany with his wife, Pat. They have two children, Patti Holloway of Abilene, Texas and K.C. Jones of Albany, Texas.

A.V. joined the West Central Texas Municipal Water District in 1962. During his nearly half-century of service, A.V. served twice as President of the District. Under his leadership, the District oversaw and completed the construction of the Hubbard Creek Reservoir and its pumping system and pipeline that provides water to the District's four member cities. A.V. worked to maintain and preserve the Hubbard Creek Reservoir as a secure long-term water source for the District by exploring and pursuing alternate sources for the cities.

A successful entrepreneur in the oil and gas industry, A.V. and his family founded several oil and gas exploration companies. He is a Vice President of the Texas Oil and Gas Association, is on the Board of Directors of the American Petroleum Institute, and is a past President of the Independent Petroleum Association of America. Moreover, A.V. is a former President of the Board of Trustees of the Albany Independent School District.

A.V. brought his spirit of leadership and his knack for success from the oil and gas industry to the Water District. As a Director and Officer, A.V. had a profound impact on reaching the District's goal of providing a safe and reliable source of water through the management of existing resources and the pursuit of additional sources of water.

Many people in West Texas can attribute the running water in their homes to the hard work and commitment of A.V. Jones. Those in District 19, including myself, would like to thank him for a job well-done and extend to him our best wishes for his future endeavors.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of an amendment that I have offered that would eliminate the $355 billion worth of discretionary programs that are in this bill. A lot of people would think there are a lot of good things in this bill, a lot of good projects. We have heard a lot of Members talk about that. And there probably are some projects in there that would be good for the communities across our country. But there is just one problem: we don't have $355 billion.

What this amendment does is it says what the American people are saying. They are concerned about the fact that we continued to borrow and spend and borrow and spend. In fact, quite honestly how we got into the situation we are in right now is the fact that individuals and companies and even governments have borrowed and spent more money than they have.

When you ask the American people what do you think is the best way to stimulate the economy, 63 percent of them say you should do it with tax cuts for businesses and individuals.

When you ask them do you think we can spend our way out of this economic situation, 61 percent of Americans say we can't spend our way out of this situation.

I think the fact is that we need to understand what is really at stake here. One of the things is that we are making a decision here in somewhat of a vacuum. We don't even know for some of these projects how much money we are going to spend in 2009 because Congress has not finished its business for the current fiscal year. We also don't know what we are going to spend on a lot of these projects in 2010 because the President of the United States has not brought his budget to this body.

And so we are going to plus up and throw out a lot of money when we already have accounts that have money in them that haven't been spent year to date. So making these decisions in a vacuum is a problem.

The other problem I have with this is we are going to spend about $275,000 on each one of these jobs; $275,000, that is a lot of money to spend for jobs, on top of the fact that we are going to have already a $1.2 trillion deficit this year.

What the American people are observing here is we are throwing a lot of money, TARP money, bailout money, and now we want to spend $825 billion worth of money that we don't have that we are going to charge to our grandsons and our children and future generations, and the American people say stop, wait a minute, what's going on here?

Now there are a lot of projects that maybe our Members think are worthy in here, but think about the fact where we read this week where people lost their jobs in America. All of us are concerned about that. If you are talking about a stimulus package, a lot of the programs that are in this spending won't even be spent until 2010, 2011 and 2012. In fact, the GAO says less than 40 percent of the spending programs in here could actually be spent in the next 18 months.

The other piece of the pie that I think concerns a lot of us is have we fully vetted this? This bill creates several new programs in Congress that haven't even gone through the regular committee process. So we are rushing up to spend a lot of money and create a large deficit for our children without much oversight. I think the American people deserve oversight. If we are going to spend money we don't have, particularly, we owe them the process of looking at how much money we are going to spend on a lot of these projects in the 2009 budget, taking a look at the President's 2010 budget, and then determining if there in fact should be some supplemental appropriations to be put in to stimulate this economy.

But I guarantee you that people back home don't think that planting grass, giving money to the arts, or buying cars for Federal employees are going to do much to help them keep or retain or create jobs in America.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I appreciate the gentleman's comments. But I guess the question I have of the gentleman when he closes, number one, where are we going to get the money?

Number two, does the gentleman know what funding is going to be spent in 2009 and 2010 for these projects? Now he may know because in many of the appropriation bills that have come to this floor, he is the only one who has had much input in that process.

So what we are doing, we are making a decision in a vacuum. To coin the term of the gentleman who just spoke, ``kabooey'' goes to the future of our young, next generation because we have left them with a legacy of huge deficits which we do not have the capacity to pay back. If we keep doing this, compounding this, making decisions on a quick basis and mortgaging their future, we are not doing the job that the American people sent us to do.

So what I am saying is there are a lot of these projects that could be brought in under regular order under the 2009 appropriation bill or that could be brought in in 2010.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, due to a death in the family I was absent for the following rollcall votes held January 21 and January 22, 2009. Had I been present, I would have voted as indicated for each roll call listed: rollcall vote 23: ``yea''; rollcall vote 24: ``nay''; rollcall vote 25: ``yea''; rollcall vote 26: ``nay''; rollcall vote 27: ``yea''; rollcall vote 28: ``yea''; rollcall vote 29: ``yea.''

I thank the gentleman.

This debate is really about two dollars. This is the dollar that's in the hands of the American people tonight, and this is the dollar, what it looks like when we give it to the Federal Government. You know, it shrinks because we don't spend it wisely.

Tonight we're being asked to consider a bill for $825 billion. And you know what? We don't have $825 billion. You know what we're going to have to do? We're going to have to print these. And guess what? In order to issue them, we're going to have to borrow the money from countries like China.

The question is, are we going to try and spend and borrow our way out of this economic downturn? The American people know that's not the answer. They also know that it's better for them to invest this dollar in the American economy than let the Federal Government go spend this dollar in our economy.

Mr. Chair, I'm disappointed that we are considering a bill tonight that's almost equal to the entire discretionary budget that would normally go through the appropriation process. Oh, no, we didn't go through any process, we were brought a bill and said this is what we should do.

The American people want us to leave this dollar in their pocket.

Mr. Chairman, I think I heard the distinguished chairman voicing some frustration with this current administration on how the TARP program was put together. I think a lot of Members who voted for this program, including the chairman, have had second thoughts because we hastily gave the authority to the administration with no plan and, more importantly, with no exit strategy.

I would remind the chairman that the incoming new Secretary, should he be confirmed and move through some issues that he may have, was at that table when designing the TARP program. So, if we're passing out blame, there may be a lot of places to pass out blame, but here is the most important thing:

Everybody who voted for that has been having second thoughts because, quite honestly, the money didn't get spent like it was represented it was going to get spent. There have been some intended consequences, but there have also been some unintended consequences of the money we passed out, because we started picking winners and losers. Any time the government starts picking winners and losers we're going to get in trouble.

The issue is what to do with this next $350 billion. Everybody kind of thought we were going to have some say-so over this next $350 billion, but in fact, we're not. This bill may pass in this House. It will never become law. The Senate has already said they will not take this bill up. So what should we be doing?

Well, on both sides of the aisle, what we should be doing here is coming back and doing an autopsy on how we spent the first $350 billion, what the results of that have been, and should we even look at or consider the additional $350 billion.

The American people are not very happy about this. We are passing out money carte blanche. We have relegated the constitutional responsibility of this House by just giving the administration, whether it's this current administration or the new administration, $700 billion and saying, Do the best you can. I don't think anybody thinks that's a very good plan.

In fact, the chairman has, in most cases, been very open and has had markups and has had a vetting of legislation. Quite honestly, I'm very disappointed. Quite honestly, in this case, this is one person's bill. Although this bill will not become law, one person is going to determine where the next $350 billion is going to go.

What we ought to be doing is having hearings. In the past, the chairman has had hearings--bringing people in here and asking them to account for the money that has been given them. Also, talk about what is the best way to do that.

Now, I did not vote for it, and I want to be clear about this. I voted against it twice. Some people voted for and against it. The chairman said we weren't clear. I'm very clear as to how I voted on it. I voted against it because I have a real problem of, cart blanche, giving people $700 billion of the American taxpayers' money with no plan.

More particularly, no accountability. We have not seen any particular reports. We have a gentleman from Texas who sits on an oversight board. He's openly said he's not sure exactly what's going on because the amount of information he's receiving is in question. That bothers me. It should bother the American people. It should bother Members on both sides of the aisle that we are not doing the people's business.

The way we do this right, if we're serious about doing this right, is we stop this process. We put it on hold, we ask the new administration to step forward with a plan, we get Members on both sides of the aisle to look at that plan, we vote, we offer amendments, we open that process so that when we go back home, we can say, ``You know what? We think we did what was in the best interest of the American people.''

But when you close the process, when you try to change the original intent of TARP, which was to use American taxpayers' resources to loan to or to guarantee and with the hopes of getting back--in fact, even people were talking about we may even make money on this. But many of the provisions, unfortunately, of this bill aren't intended to get any return on the taxpayers' money, particularly then we're moving away from an asset program to an entitlement program, and it deserves better consideration.

I urge Members not to vote for this bill.

I thank the gentleman.

I want to reiterate one point that was made earlier, and I think is maybe one of the most important points that has been made here today, and that is that we don't have another $350 billion. In fact, we didn't have the first $350 billion, and we had to go out and borrow that money from our children and our grandchildren in order to do something that nobody has really articulated what we were trying to do. We didn't have a plan. There was no accountability. But we went ahead and charged on the credit cards of our children and our grandchildren $350 billion, with the assumption we would do another $350 billion.

The issue here, and the reason it is so important, and I am frustrated and I do not understand, this isn't the only money that we have committed. The Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, have guaranteed billions and billions of dollars, and we are getting into the trillions. A recent Wall Street Journal article said that we could possibly be already in this at $6 trillion. Now, even in Texas that is a lot of money.

But the question here is that it is not just this $350 billion that we are talking about. The other side is putting together a proposal right now. It is a stimulus package. The new administration is going to bring that any day. We don't know what that number is, but it has been reported anywhere from $800 billion to $1.3 trillion. Again, we don't have that $800 billion or $1.3 trillion.

So when you add all this together, we are talking about in the next few weeks here committing $1.5 trillion of the American taxpayers' money with no plan, with no measure of what has happened to all of these unprecedented things we have done.

Then the last point I want to make here is it is unprecedented, the amount of interference and injection that we have put the Federal Government into companies all across America, and the markets are trying to figure out what to do with this new player in the marketplace. And the question is, there was no exit strategy, so at some point at time somebody is going to blow the whistle and say okay, it is time to quit doing all of this government interference, hopefully sooner rather than later, and then the question is what is going to happen to the markets as the government begins to exit this? What is going to happen when all of these guarantees begin to expire, when all of these loans that we have made begin to come due, all of these investments that we have made in these companies start to have to be paid off? And the problem is that we are doing that all on a rapid fire basis with no clear direction.

Now, the American people deserve for the United States Congress that they just recently elected and we were sworn in, they deserve for us to look and deliberate and make sure that if we are going to mortgage our children's and our grandchildren's future, that we at least do it in a way that we can look them in the eye and say we believe it is in their best interests that we do that; that we are looking at the effectiveness of the program, we are looking at how people are spending that money, and we have a plan on how we are going to end this at some point in time. Unfortunately, none of those exist today.

Mr. Chairman, I encourage Members of Congress to stop and reflect. Let's vote this bill down and let's look and be accountable to the American people. They deserve it.

Mr. Speaker, this summer, spring, we sent Americans a stimulus check to help stimulate the economy. We actually gave them some money. We had already spent the money that they had given us for taxes, and so we went and borrowed some money and sent that money to the American people to let them try to stimulate our economy.

Evidently that didn't work as well as a lot of people thought it would, and so now there is a movement to spend much more, larger amount, triple, quadruple the amount of money that was spent this spring. Guess what? We don't have the money, and so we are going to go and borrow it.

So what we are on is this system of tax, spend, borrow. Tax, spend, borrow. It isn't working. The American people know that that's not the right prescription for getting us out of this economic slump. Yet that is the plan that will be brought before this body possibly this week.

This is going to be a big week for your children and grandchildren. We are going to have a $350 billion second half of the stimulus or the bailout program, and now we are talking about nearly $1 trillion in new spending for a stimulus package, $1.3 trillion.

My friend from Texas spoke about the fact that Members from Congress are using their voting cards as credit cards. It's time, actually, for Members of Congress to start using their cards not as credit cards and mortgaging the future of our young people, but investing and beginning to spend money that

we actually have, instead of spending money we do not have.

This unrestrained borrowing and spending has got to stop because it's not working. Now, one of the things that we need to do to actually begin to stimulate the economy is just leave the money in the economy. How do we leave the money in the economy?

Well, Mr. Speaker, what we do is we lower the taxes. We lower the taxes on individuals. We lower the taxes on corporations. We lower the taxes on small businesses.

Our small businesses, for example, are the number one job creators in America. By lowering the taxes for small businesses, we are able to create jobs and opportunity. Whether it's Joe the Plumber or Ray the Electrician, when they have the opportunity to keep more of the money that they are making, they go out and buy a new service truck.

Well, you know what happens when they buy a new service truck? They have got to go hire someone to run that truck, so they go out and hire an electrician or a plumber and maybe a helper. So that creates more and more jobs.

But every time we take more and more of the money of Joe the Plumber or Ray the Electrician or the American hardworking people, when we take that money into Congress or into the government, one, that dollar gets a lot smaller when it goes back out and, yet, so we are taking, the net effect is, we are taking money out of the economy.

I introduced a bill last week that would try to leave the money in the economy. What this bill would do would be lower each one of the tax brackets by--the tax rate on each one of the brackets by 5 percent.

Also, it would make the top brackets in this country, both corporate and individual, 25 percent. That means that we have a further reduction in the amount of money that we take out of the economy on a daily, weekly and annual basis.

Now, what could this do? Well, according to the Heritage Foundation, this could help create more jobs in our country. Possibly in 2009 it could create a half a million new jobs; by the year 2012, 3.6 million new jobs.

If Americans and the American people are going to enjoy the freedoms and liberties that this Nation offers, the best way to do that is to allow them to have the opportunity to work and to earn their money, but, more importantly, to keep more of their money.

One of the things that we have done in this country that concerns me, I think it concerns the American people, is this country was founded on principles of empowerment. People came to America with dreams that they would work hard, apply themselves. And if they did that, they could reap the benefits of their hard work and enjoy their successes.

But, unfortunately, in our country today, they were running away from big government. Now the country that was founded on the principles of small business is moving more to big government. And how is the government getting bigger? It's taking a bigger and bigger chunk out of the American people's, American taxpayers' hard-earned money.

Mr. Speaker, these are difficult times, yet they are challenging times, but they are times where we must make good decisions. Going out and mortgaging another $1.3 billion for future generations to pay back is not a good investment.

I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill so that we can leave more money with the American taxpayers. The American taxpayers deserve a better plan from the Federal government than more spending on top of a deficit already projected to be more than $1 trillion this year.

Congress should focus on solutions that empower individuals and businesses to succeed in the economy, rather than solutions that make them more dependent on the Federal government.

Well, I appreciate the gentleman conducting this hour. Of course, when you come late to the game, you are going to be repeating some of the things that have been said, but I think that some of these things bear repeating.

I think the number one premise that the American people need to be listening, as we have this debate, about further actions that this government might take to intervene in these markets, is to remind everybody whose money this is. Now, some people out there think that it's the government's money, and we let the American people keep some of it.

Others think that small businesses and hard-working families across America that are working hard and conducting business, that money belongs to them. That's the premise that I believe in.

As a former small businessman, like the gentleman is as well, I have been out in the marketplace, and I know what market forces are. What I do know is that government is always a hindrance to market forces and has very seldom been oil for commerce.

As we begin to do this, we are going to be talking about who do we trust? There are those that voted, the other day, that said we don't trust the American people to distribute their money.

Then there are those of us that voted that said, you know what, we trust American small businesses and hard-working families with their own money, and we believe we know the right prescription on how to stimulate the economy, how to spend money.

One of the things that we know is that the more money you let a small business or a large business keep, the more money they are able to reinvest in their business. And what happens when they reinvest in their business? They create jobs.

What do American people want? American people want the opportunity that this great country affords them. And what greater opportunity than to have a good job. And plowing billions and trillions now, we are talking trillions of dollars, into feel-good things isn't going to stimulate this economy. As the gentleman knows, which is the reason I introduced a bill, today, in fact, that is going to allow the American people to keep more of their money.

It's going to allow small businesses and large businesses to keep more of their money, because that's the cheapest capital that they can obtain. So if we are taking a smaller bite out of that, they can buy, start another factory or buy another truck for their electrical contracting business or whatever business they are in. And what happens when they buy another truck, they have got to have employees for that truck.

What does that do that creates more jobs? So I hope the American people are listening to this very carefully, because, really, there are a lot of fancy words being used here, but the real word is trust, some don't trust the American people. I just want the American people to know I trust them.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in recognition of a fine educational institution in the 19th Congressional District of Texas. This year, Wayland Baptist University, located in Plainview, Texas celebrates its l00th anniversary of excellence in education.

Wayland Baptist University is a 4-year university with a total of 14 campuses and a student body of more than 6,000. Founded in Plainview in 1908 by Dr. James Wayland, the University has become one of the largest Southern Baptist institutions of higher education in the country.

Throughout its 100 years, Wayland Baptist University has seen much progress and growth. While maintaining its commitment to providing a quality Christian education, Wayland has been at the forefront of change. It was among the first universities in the country to admit women and minority students, offer distance learning programs, and to create programs directed toward military students.

Wayland places a strong emphasis on student success and provides an excellent learning environment. The school offers a wide variety of disciplines, from fine arts to engineering, as well as a wide variety of extracurricular activities. Athletics at Wayland provide a constant source of pride for the community, producing more than 800 All- Americans and 100 individual national championships in the last century.

Dynamic vision and devotion to students are the true marks of an exceptional educational institution. On this occasion of its 100th anniversary, I congratulate Wayland Baptist University and look forward to watching this institution thrive in the years to come.