Floor Statements

Ladies and gentlemen, we will soon bring to the floor a defense authorization bill that invests in our most important security needs: disrupting terrorists networks, countering nuclear proliferation, strengthening international cooperation to defeat the Taliban, preparing the Iraqi Government to stand on its own, and investing in the needs of our troops and their families.

This bill builds on Democrats' strong defense record. Under President Obama, we have killed or captured some of the highest ranking leaders in al Qaeda--many more than we did under the last administration--and the Taliban; laid out a clear way forward in Afghanistan; disrupted terrorism with the full resources of our intelligence community and justice system; and increased funding for human intelligence collection, cybersecurity, and security for our skies, our ports, and our borders.

This bill offers us a chance to improve on the flawed record of the Bush administration, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

I thank the Republican whip for yielding.

On Monday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m. On Tuesday, the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning-hour debate and 12 p.m. for legislative business. Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business, and on Friday, the House will meet at 9 a.m.

We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules, as is usual. The complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of business tomorrow.

In addition, we will consider Senate amendments to H.R. 4213, the American Jobs Closing Tax Loopholes and Preventing Outsourcing Act, and H.R. 5136, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2011. And we will take further action on the America COMPETES legislation to make our economy more vibrant.

I expect us to reserve that day for session. I have urged Members, and I would urge Members on both sides of the aisle, to reserve that day, not to plan for that day. Clearly, if we can complete the week's business then we will not have to meet.

But I remind the gentleman, as I am sure he knows, there are a number of items that have expiration dates either on the 31st of May or the 1st of June: unemployment insurance, COBRA health insurance, the sustainable growth rate for doctors' reimbursement for services, and other items that are critical to continue. So that I do not want to give away Friday because it is the last day we will be here for 10 days, and therefore we need to address those issues.

We expect to take such time as is necessary to complete the appropriate debate on that bill. If we can do it in 1 day, we will do it in 1

day. If it takes more than that, we will allot more time.

I thank the gentleman for his question and for yielding. With respect to the budget, as the gentleman knows, I personally want to see a budget move forward. Mr. Spratt has been working very hard to try to see if we can reach consensus on the parameters of such a budget. He continues to do that. I frankly want to tell the gentleman honestly that my assessment is that that probably will not be done by Thursday or Wednesday of next week, and therefore even if it were completed Wednesday, not appropriate time for notice to be given. So that my expectation is that will not be done next week, but my expectation is that we will continue to work on that, and hopefully do that shortly after our return.

You asked another question I didn't answer. I apologize. On the war supplemental, very important bill that I know the gentleman and I are very interested in. As you know, the Senate has marked up its supplemental in committee. Chairman Obey I know is working to get a bill ready for committee consideration. It is possible that we would consider that next week if, in fact, Mr. Obey and the committee are ready to report that out.

Mr. Boehner and I did attempt to pursue some meaningful restraints last week, and unfortunately, we couldn't get agreement to do so on your side of the aisle. Having said that, we certainly agree that we need to get a handle on the extraordinary deficit picture that confronts us.

I know I am repetitive, but in 2001, President Bush came before the Congress and said we have a $5.6 trillion surplus. Unfortunately, that $5.6 trillion surplus was eliminated, and in fact, $5 trillion of additional deficit was incurred, giving us a $10 trillion deficit when this administration took over. That's unfortunate.

I will tell the gentleman, as he knows, he and others have voted for trillions, that's with a T, of dollars of unfunded liabilities for the Federal Government, either reduction in revenues, which of course you say will grow the economy--unfortunately, it did not--or a prescription drug bill which was not paid for which was hundreds of billions of dollars, not minimal dollars. But I will tell the gentleman that we are interested in working with you in a meaningful way, not in procedural vote ways, but in meaningful ways to reduce the deficit that confronts us, including reducing areas of spending, which we think is appropriate.

With respect to the motion that you made today, a procedural motion, if it hadn't been a procedural motion, maybe a real motion--and of course many of those programs were in existence for the 12 years that you controlled the Congress of the United States, as the gentleman well knows. The motion today, of course, would have affected a program which is going to create, we believe, 185,000 jobs. We think that's important in an economy that is still struggling to get jobs back. But we applaud the efforts to bring forward meaningful, important ideas. Unfortunately, that has not always been our experience.

I am sure you read there have been a lot of motions to recommit that have been made. Now we are onto previous questions now, but motions to recommit. Norm Ornstein wrote an article about those just the other day in which he said, The unfortunate fact is that the motion to recommit with instructions has for more than a decade become a hollow vehicle and farce. Now, the American people don't want to see us participate in hollow vehicles and farces. What they want to see is us work together in real ways to effect the kind of fiscal responsibility that we had in the nineties, and unfortunately we did not have in the last decade. We need to return to that.

We have, as you know, taken very substantive steps. One was to pay for what we buy--not a previous question--legislation on this floor which said we are going to pay for what we buy. That was in place in the nineties, put in place in a bipartisan way with Mr. Bush and Mr. Gephardt leading the way and others. Again adopted in a bipartisan way with Mr. Gingrich and President Clinton working together. And then of course jettisoned under not your personal leadership, but under the leadership of the Republican Party in 2001, 2002, 2003, formally jettisoned in 2003, in which we said, no, we don't believe that paying for what we buy is the policy that we are going to pursue. And in fact you didn't pursue it. You created large deficits every year that you controlled the Congress: the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. Every year without fail.

So I tell my friend that we want to join together in real efforts. We are sorry that in a partisan way PAYGO was jettisoned. We are also sorry that the commission that the President established by Executive order didn't pass because so many of your colleagues in the Senate who said they were for the idea of setting up a commission to propose real restraint in spending, not only in terms of discretionary dollars but in terms of entitlement dollars, that so many of your colleagues in the Senate opposed that, and as result we don't have a statutory commission, we have a Presidentially appointed commission.

I am hopeful that they will make substantive recommendations. I am hopeful that our Members and your Members will join together in making recommendations to us. And as you know, both Mr. Reid, the leader in the Senate, and Speaker Pelosi have indicated that we will put their recommendations on the floor. If the Senate passes them, we will put them on the floor here. Hopefully, we can work together toward the end that I think we both seek even though there may be disagreement on the process that is being pursued.

Will the gentleman yield?

I was just going to say that I still agree with both of those statements, Mr. Spratt's and my own.

Will the gentleman yield?

I think there is a lot of concern, not necessarily on these Members' parts, and we all know this, about 30-second simplistic ``gotcha'' ads on television which don't discuss the substance of the ramifications of actions. The bill that passed passed overwhelmingly. The previous question would have stopped that bill going forward. Obviously, when you were in control you wanted the previous question passed so you could move your substantive legislation forward. There is no difference over here. But the ``gotcha'' ads certainly are something that in the minds of everybody on both sides of the aisle----

Well, first of all, we don't believe this is a real vote. Our Members don't believe it's a real vote. Our Members are cognizant of why it's being done. But the 185,000 jobs, clearly, those nine Members that you referenced did not vote to eliminate 185,000 jobs. But all your Members did. The difference is because you are not going to run ads against your Members.

The fact of the matter is that if you want to do real things to create real jobs, we're prepared to work with you. We believe the program you wanted to eliminate does in fact score at creating 185,000 jobs. You call it welfare. We call it work. We think it was an appropriate expenditure. As a matter of fact, as the gentleman may know, we have that expenditure in our jobs bill. Why? Because it's scored to create 185,000 jobs, put people to work, allow them to support their families, allow them to live with some degree of dignity. And we think that's appropriate in a very, very strained economy to this date.

We're coming back, but as we've seen lately, it is fragile and this gum, grease, and oil has caused us problems in terms of confidence. And we need to keep confidence up and not make the mistakes that have been made in the past.

Will the gentleman yield on that particular point?

As you know, I schedule the legislation. Are you asking me not to schedule the 40 percent of those post office bills that your Members are requesting? Because if you are, I will not schedule them.

Would the gentleman yield?

I ask the gentleman, there is a Member on your side of the aisle who has, in my opinion, a very thoughtful, courageous, and substantive proposal. I happen not to agree with it, but I think it is a courageous, intellectually honest proposal. And that is Mr. Ryan, who's the ranking member of the Budget Committee. If the gentleman would like us to put that budget on the floor--which is from his chair when he was in the majority of the Budget Committee--that is a really substantive proposal. Again, I don't agree with it, but I think it intellectually is an honest, effective proposal to deal with a very serious problem, not a little problem, but a trillion-dollar problem; not a little problem that sounds good in sound bites but is not going to get us to where we need to be.

I think Mr. Ryan has such a proposal, and I certainly would urge the chairman of the Budget Committee to agree to make sure that's on the floor because I believe that is a substantive proposal. The gentleman says we don't put his substantive proposals on the

floor. That's made by the ranking member of the Budget Committee, one of the leaders of his party, representing your party on the Budget Committee. And I would be glad to make arrangements to have that proposal on the floor.

Would the gentleman want me to do that?

I agree with that.

Will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I take that as a ``no,'' that you're not interested in having that bill brought up.

But $2.5 billion is a lot of money, and to the extent we cut $2.5 billion or $2.5 million, we ought to do it. You are going to have an opportunity to vote on that $2.4 billion, 185,000 job-creation bill probably next week. We're going to have it on the floor. So you'll have a chance to vote on that, I tell my friend.

We do want to work together. And the reason I keep bringing up is not to blame--I said this a couple of weeks ago--not to blame, but to point out the failure of the premise under which you have operated to do what you said it was going to do: create jobs, lower the deficit. In fact, it did the opposite. We followed that economic policy for 6 years. The American public said, We don't like this. And we couldn't change it because President Bush didn't want to change it.

In 2008, they said, We want new leadership. Unfortunately, the legacy we were left was the deepest economic recession as a result of those policies that this country has seen in 75 years. We're trying to dig out. It's difficult to dig out. We have a responsibility, however, to make the tough decisions to dig out.

You and I made a tough decision at President Bush's request in September. In February, we had to make another tough decision. You and I disagreed on that, and that was trying to put money into the economy, trying to stabilize it and bring jobs back. I suggest to the gentleman that that is working. It's not working as well as we would have liked, but we've had 4 months of job growth. Those 4 months, if they're replicated over the next two-thirds of the year, would create more jobs than were created in the 96 months of the Bush administration--1.7 million jobs. One million were created during the entire 8 years of the Bush administration, net.

We have a hole. We need to dig out. The gentleman is absolutely correct: to the extent that we dig together, America will be better. We want to do that.

Will the gentleman yield?

What I said was we'll bring the proposal to create those jobs to the floor--not to cut it, but to spend it because we believe that that will create 185,000 jobs. So I just didn't want to be misconstrued in what I said.

The gentleman will have an opportunity to vote against that, of course.

Mr. Speaker. I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns tomorrow, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Monday next for morning-hour debate; and further, that when the House adjourns on that day, it adjourn to meet at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, May 25, 2010, for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady from Ohio, Congresswoman Fudge, for yielding. I thank her for her leadership in bringing this bill to the floor. I thank my friend, Mr. Petri, for his work on this legislation. I am once again, and too infrequently nowadays, glad to join with one of my best friends in the House of Representatives, Roy Blunt from Missouri, who has worked with me for many years on this issue with the Shriver and Kennedy families.

I'm pleased that Patrick Kennedy is on the floor with us, my good friend and a wonderful Member of Congress, who's done such an extraordinary job representing Rhode Island and our country, and who Eunice Shriver is, I know, very proud of as she watches his commitment to those who have confronted disabilities and medical challenges. Patrick Kennedy has been a giant in raising the voice--and showed extraordinary courage. To that extent, that is consistent with the Kennedy legacy of courage in the face of adversity. Patrick, thank you very much.

I met Patrick's aunt in 1962, long before many people here were born. It was at a Young Democrats convention at the Washingtonian Motel on Route 70 in Montgomery County. Sargent Shriver was the speaker at that convention. Judy and I were at that convention. I was then 22 or 23 years of age, and I was, of course, properly awestruck by Sargent Shriver and Eunice Shriver, having gotten into politics because of John Kennedy's call for young people to become engaged.

Patrick is correct in many ways. Certainly, one of, if not the giant of the family, was Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who, through her relationship with her sister, understood firsthand the discrimination, the isolation, the prejudice that can be directed at somebody with a disability, or at least with somebody that didn't have the same abilities that others have. Not only did she lament that but she lived her life to reverse that. That's what Patrick was talking about, compellingly. That's why Roy Blunt and I have joined together over the years to support this legislation.

We have had the privilege of working with Tim Shriver and Anthony Shriver, who carry on the legacy. What a wonderful family, from generation to generation passing the torch of service from one generation to the next. I have had the privilege of being a close friend of, as I said, Patrick and his father, with whom I worked very closely over the years, and so many other members of his family.

This legislation is named in honor of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who dedicated her long life to public service--not an elected office, but like so many more of us that served in elected office, millions and millions of Americans who saw a challenge and sought to meet it, especially committed to the inclusion of those with intellectual disabilities in the mainstream of our society. I was proud to call her friend. I was proud to be at NIH the day that we named a center for Eunice Kennedy Shriver. More

importantly, she was a friend to millions of people around the world, many of whom never knew her name and will not realize how they are the beneficiaries of her leadership and her commitment.

We have Eunice Kennedy Shriver to thank in large part for the Special Olympics and for better understanding of the challenges and potential of people with intellectual disabilities. This bill carries her legacy of inclusion and public service. It reauthorizes the Special Olympics Act, which continues grant funding for a remarkable movement that has promoted athletic competition and health for more than four decades. It emphasizes the importance of competition and competing and participating. Yes, winning is nice. But in the competition itself is the victory--the victory of spirit, the victory of courage, the victory of self-satisfaction.

Today, the Special Olympics reaches more than 3 million athletes in more than 150 countries. For those athletes, the Special Olympics means the joy of competition and the challenge of pushing themselves to be their very best. For the rest of us, the Special Olympics has increased respect for people with disabilities. From time to time, those of us who have participated in the Special Olympics, particularly some time ago, when huggers were allowed--we were huggers. Huggers simply meant, Congratulations. Well done. Keep on keeping on.

This bill also reauthorizes grants to expand the successful Best Buddies program, which is dedicated to the social integration of children and adults with intellectual disabilities. Again, Eunice Shriver and John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, other Kennedy siblings saw Rosemary and they saw the isolation to which she was subjected. I had the opportunity of visiting Anthony in Florida, and Rosemary was at his house. The love and care extended to Rosemary was extraordinary. This was something that they lived, not just fought for.

Its volunteers gain valuable leadership opportunities and its participants with disabilities learn that they are valuable members of our communities. It is a valuable part of Eunice Kennedy Shriver's legacy, one that has found its way to more than a thousand schools and workplaces, and it deserves--and I'm sure will get--our support.

As Mrs. Shriver has said about the athletes whose competition she's supported for so many years, Special Olympic athletes are spokespersons for freedom itself--they ask for the freedom to live, the freedom to belong, the freedom to contribute, the freedom to have a chance. That should be the goal for every American with a disability, and indeed it should be the goal of us all. This bill brings it a little closer to realization.

I, again, want to thank my good friend, Roy Blunt, who has been so deeply involved in this effort. It has been, as always, a privilege to be his partner in this effort. I urge its overwhelming adoption and again thank Congresswoman Fudge and Congressman Petri for their efforts.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

On Tuesday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m.

On Wednesday and Thursday, Mr. Speaker, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business.

On Friday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business.

We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. A complete list of suspensions will be announced by the close of business tomorrow.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, we will consider Senate amendments to H.R. 4213, the American Jobs Closing Tax Loopholes and Preventing Outsourcing Act.

I yield back.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I want to tell the gentleman, although I announced only the American Jobs Bill Closing Tax Loopholes and Preventing Outsourcing Act, my expectation is we will also deal with the COMPETES Act next week as well. That bill, we believe, is a very important bill. We think it's very important for jobs. We think it's very important for investing in our future, and we intend to bring that bill to the floor as well next week.

I am certainly hopeful that we will deal with the issue of spending levels by the time we bring appropriation bills to the floor. We are working on that.

I will say to my friend who has just given us an exposition on his new program--and he gave the Web site address, I think--that, first of all, let me say that we welcome the interest in the Republican Party in cutting spending. Of course, spending was substantially increased when you had the Presidency and the House and the Senate, very substantially, as you know, at twice the rate it was increased during the Clinton administration. We also believe that we are sure that many citizens have some very useful suggestions.

I would also urge them to make their suggestions to the commission which the President has appointed to get a handle on not 16/100 of spending but on the real dollars that confront us and which the American public are very concerned about.

The commission that the President appointed is to look at how we can bring spending down, how we can address the deficit, and how we can get back to the place where we were at the end of 2000, at the end of the Clinton

administration when we had a $5.6 trillion surplus. Unfortunately, that surplus was turned into this administration inheriting about a $5 trillion deficit while your party was in total control of the House, the Senate, and the administration.

But we certainly look forward to the suggestions that you have or anybody has in the public as to how we can bring spending under control.

Your party has talked a lot about earmarks. As the gentleman well knows, in 1994 there were some 4,000 earmarks between our 50 States and 435 districts. That was escalated under Republicans to 15,000-- quadrupled the number of earmarks. Now the gentleman is against earmarks, at least wants a suspension of those. We think that that is, perhaps, progress.

But I want to tell the gentleman that we hope you will cooperate with us in the findings of the commission. You have three very outstanding Members that have been appointed from this House. Hopefully they will make substantive suggestions to get the budget deficit under control as was done in the 1990s when, for the first time in your lifetime and in mine--and I have a lot more lifetime to tout than you do--we had a balanced budget for 4 years in a row. That's never happened in your lifetime or in mine other than during the Clinton administration. That was important.

Unfortunately, in the following decade that we have just been through, again the deficit was exploded. But certainly any efforts to get suggestions from anybody, including the American public, of how they think that we can reduce spending, bring the deficit under control, is welcome, and we look forward to hearing suggestions.

But I want to say that while some of the programs you have mentioned, I have one of those programs being a $200,000 program. You say it's a $1 million program. In either event, it's certainly worth looking at to see whether it has value to invest dollars in.

But you and I both know that in a $3.56 trillion budget deficit that we have to look at the big numbers where we're spending money and what policies we have adopted in order to get to where I think all of us want to be, and that's back to where we were in fiscal year 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000.

I yield.

Will the gentleman yield?

We've done some very substantive things, most of which your party has opposed. We passed last year the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act which you voted against and which your party voted, to a person, against. I don't know whether you happened to see that, as a result of that act, people last year paid the lowest tax rates that they have paid since 1950. We reduced over $300 billion in taxes for individuals and small business.

Now, you can make fun of the resolutions that your party introduces and my party congratulating people for things or noting that post offices are being renamed or things of that nature, but that's a ruse. That's not the substance of what we do here. Members want to acknowledge their hometown folks. I've been in the legislature for a long period of time. They did that in the State senate. They do it here. And sometimes it's easy to make fun of.

But we've done some very substantive things. The gentleman knows that. This is one of the most productive Congresses that I've served in over the last 30 years in terms of very important pieces of legislation. Your party has voted, in many instances, against that legislation.

The proof of the pudding, of course, is in its eating. You didn't ask me where the jobs are this time as you usually do. There were 290,000 new jobs created, 230,000 jobs the month before that, and an average of 100,000 jobs have been created per month over the last 4 months.

The gentleman, over the last 4 months, hasn't mentioned jobs, apparently because he thinks perhaps we found them where, frankly, the previous administration lost them wherever they were lost. We need to bring them back.

We are investing in bills to get jobs back. We're investing in making sure that people who have lost their jobs have some sustenance to support themselves and their families. We don't think that's de minimis legislation. We think it's critically important.

We are passing legislation to make sure that people have health care; that when they lose their job, they lose their insurance, they get sick, that they have a COBRA coverage that they can count on. We don't think that is de minimis. We are working on legislation to make sure that doctors get reimbursed at appropriate levels so they will continue to serve the seniors of America under Medicare. We don't think that is de minimis action.

Now, I could go on and on, as I am sure you know and probably my colleagues know; but we believe we are passing a lot of legislation to respond to a deep crisis of economic depths, unknown since 75 years ago in the Great Depression, that we inherited and we are trying to respond to. And we are now creating jobs. We are now expanding the economy.

Somebody that you may agree with most of the time, Larry Kudlow, said, you ought to stop talking down the economy. The facts speak for themselves. GDP growth for three quarters in a row, jobs being created, stock market up. It has been down and up in little glitches, but it is up some 70 percent on the Dow, 80 percent on the S&P, and almost 100 percent on the NASDAQ. None of that we think is de minimis, I tell my friend.

Both sides, by the way, do what you just did. We did it to you and we made fun of these little resolutions that don't take much time but are meaningful to the constituencies that hear about them and appreciate the fact that their efforts throughout the country were acknowledged in one way or another, or that somebody that has great respect in their community was honored. Many soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines are being honored by having post offices named for them in their communities. Others are being honored.

So I tell my friend, we need to be serious. We have a critical deficit confronting us. We have a critical long-term deficit confronting us. We have a critical problem of an unsustainable entitlement regime confronting us. The Peterson Institute is running hearings

all over this country to say, Americans, tell us what you think. I don't think your idea is a bad idea of asking Americans. We all want to ask Americans: What do you think? So we can come together to solve what we both agree is a very serious economic ditch into which we have fallen. We need to get out of it. We need to work together to do that. The American public expects us to do that.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. Maybe the public gets tired of this back and forth. But the gentleman talks in ways that indicate that all of a sudden, in 2009, January, when President Obama took office, somehow the world fell apart. In point of fact, as the gentleman knows, in the last year of the Clinton administration, we gained 1.9 million new jobs. In the last year of the Bush administration, under the policies that the gentleman supported and his party was very enthusiastic about, we lost 3.8 million jobs. That is a 5.7 million job turnaround.

Yes, we were in dire straits. And conservative economists, Republican economists, Mr. Zandi and others, as well as progressive economists, liberal economists, call them what you will, all said: If you do not invest in this economy, if you do not invest in stabilizing this economy, very frankly, you are going to lose 800,000 in additional revenues. Which meant that you would be in the same debt position whether you invested that money or didn't.

Now, in investing that money, I say to my friend, with all but maybe 2 months over the last 15 months we have had a straight line out of the almost 800,000 jobs that under your policies were lost in the last month of the Bush administration. Almost 800,000 jobs. We have been on a straight line to now where 5 of the last 6 months, we have had positive job growth.

Is it enough? It is not. Should we do more? We should. Should we cooperate in doing that? Absolutely. That is what the American public expects us to do. But don't forget the fact of how we got here. Don't forget the fact that an awful lot of economists on your other side of the aisle said we needed to invest or the economy was going to fall even further, and we wouldn't have that straight line out of the depths of loss of jobs into the positive numbers of creating jobs.

Let me also say to you, you mentioned taxes, and you mentioned the fact that somehow it was because incomes fell. Incomes did fall, and that was unfortunate. They fell because, we believe--we don't agree on this--it was because of the economic policies that were pursued. We think our facts are valid.

I would remind you, 216,000 jobs per month for 96 months under the Clinton administration, average, 216,000; 21 months of over 400,000 jobs. The Bush administration had 5 of those months, and the Bush administration's average job creation over 96 months was 11,000 jobs; 216,000 versus 11,000 jobs.

So the economy was in great distress. Yes, we had to invest. Yes, we had to borrow. Because, if we didn't, our grandchildren--and I have grandchildren. I have a great grandchild. I am very worried about what they are going to inherit, and I knew that we could not allow the economy to fall through the floor.

But let me say this. This is from USA Today, from an article that appeared: Taxes Paid Have Fallen Much Faster Than Income in This Recession. Your proposition was taxes fell because income fell. Personal income fell 2 percent last year. That is 2 percent too much. Actually, it is about 10 percent too much, because we would have hoped they would have gone up 5 percent or 6 percent or 7 percent.

But listen to this next sentence. I know you will want to get this next sentence: ``Taxes paid dropped 23 percent. The BEA classified Social Security taxes as insurance payments.''

So I tell my friend, we inherited a terrible economy from the Bush administration, and we have been working very hard to bring it back. And almost every indication indicates that in fact it is coming back. We invested in trying to keep the automobile companies employing people, and they are doing that.

So I tell my friend that I did not, as you recall, imply that you had talked down the economy. What I said was Larry Kudlow, talking to his fellow conservatives, said, Don't do it, because the facts don't warrant that kind of attack.

So we are going to continue to work. I want to work with you. We want to get this economy moving. We want to create jobs. You will have legislation on the floor next week, hopefully you will work with us, that we think will do that. It will create summer jobs. It will invest in infrastructure with the America Bonds program. So there are a number of things that you will have an opportunity to vote on next week, I hope you will join us, which are going to continue to stabilize those who don't have jobs and to create jobs for them in the new economy.

If the gentleman will just yield on that, are you referring to the paragraph that says: ``Presidents Clinton and Bush pushed through a series of tax changes, credits, lower rates, higher exemptions that slashed income taxes for poor and middle-class families''?

I don't want to get too personal on this, but what do you think about cutting the spending for the high-speed rail between Richmond and Washington?

Is that a ``no''?

I don't think I mentioned a figure on the extenders. I am pretty sure I did not, not today or, frankly, any other day, because it hasn't been finally completed by the Ways and Means Committee. As you know, they are working with the Senate Finance Committee as well, and working with Republicans. As you know, this was a bipartisan bill when it came from the Senate, Republicans supported it, and we hope it is a bipartisan bill as it leaves here.

But let me say the fact is what the Senate sent us, we are working on. The process that we will consider it has not yet been finally determined, so I can't tell the gentleman exactly what that will be. But some of the things I have already mentioned will be in it, UI and COBRA, FMAP, Build America Bonds for local infrastructure programs, summer jobs programs so we can get young people to work this summer so that they will have some livelihood and can help their families who are in distress.

We also, as I said, are going to deal with the SGR to ensure seniors can keep their doctors. We'll conclude provisions to close tax loopholes, crack down on outsourcing of jobs overseas and protect American jobs here at home. Those are all the things that I think will be in it. That's not necessarily an exclusive list, but that is certainly a bill that we think will be pro-business, and confirming many of the tax benefits that are given to businesses, as you well know, that we regulate, continue, including the investment tax credit so that we can encourage businesses to grow and invest and to create jobs.

So that is an outline of it. This process has not yet been decided. I'm sure there will be discussions about that tomorrow with our Rules Committee chair and with the committee. Perhaps we can know at a later date.

I think, as you know, there was a bill over from the Senate, which was bipartisan in nature, and I think that we need to move this bill before Memorial Day. I think that the committee is going to have to decide how to get that done in the fastest way possible so that many of the expiring issues do not expire, which would be very detrimental to docs and to many other people.

I'm sure everybody listening now will be glad to hear that there is some cooperation and agreement. The gentleman and I are both strong supporters of the Iran sanction legislation. We believe that not only is the Middle East region at risk, but the international community is at risk as long as Iran is pursuing its intent to arm itself with nuclear weapons.

I tell the gentleman that I have been working very closely with Mr. Berman, and it is my hope and expectation that this conference report will be reported back to us before the Memorial Day break, and it is my intention to work towards having that sent to the President before we leave here for the Memorial Day break.

I don't think the same would be because of both the Senate and the House. I'm hopeful that we will pass the supplemental through the House, but it won't be in the same position because we haven't had a conference on the supplemental. The Senate is working on a bill, as the gentleman knows. We're working on a bill. I have talked to the chairman, and he is trying to get the matter together for the committee. And I am hopeful that we will pass it through the House. My urging is that we pass it through the House prior to the Memorial Day break. But, obviously, the gentleman knows we will not have effected a conference by that time. But we want to do so very shortly because, clearly, we need to make sure the resources are available for our men and women in harm's way in both Iraq and Afghanistan and in other troubled spots of the world.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that it may be in order at any time on Thursday, May 20, 2010, for the Speaker to declare a recess, subject to the call of the Chair, for the purpose of receiving in joint meeting His Excellency Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, President of the United Mexican States.

The Speaker pro Tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Maryland?

I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise in strong support of the rule on the COMPETES Act, and I will speak later on the bill itself.

But I rise to pay tribute to Muftiah McCartin. Muftiah is a good friend of mine, so I want you to take this as a totally subjective analysis. I don't pretend to be objective. I think Muftiah McCartin is one of the most able people with whom I have worked during the 30 years I have been here. Muftiah came here when she was just a child 35 years ago and has served this institution extraordinarily well during that period of time. She served the Parliamentarians that I have served with myself, Bill Brown and Charlie Johnson and John Sullivan, and she did so with extraordinary skill.

Our Parliamentarian's Office, for those who have the opportunity to watch us, are the truest nonpartisan, bipartisan people that we have in this institution, who give both sides advice and counsel as to how to conform to the rules and how to conduct business in the most appropriate fashion. Muftiah McCartin was a giant in that service. She cares deeply about this institution and all its Members, not from a partisan sense but from an institutional sense. She has served the American people extraordinarily well, and what an example of success she is.

She came here shortly after high school, working here, and went to night school to get her undergraduate degree and completed her law degree in night school. She showed the same tenacity that warranted the private sector wanting her to come and be with them. Her service to this institution cannot be calculated in any kind of numbers of years served. Her service to this institution is measured by the commitment she made to each and every one of us and to this institution.

Perhaps Terry, her husband, and her four children--her three girls and Luke--will have more time now with Muftiah because she was with us around the clock sometimes. When I first came here, we didn't have a rule that said you have to end at 12 o'clock. When I first came here in the early eighties, as Mr. Rangel will recall and Muftiah I know will recall, we sometimes went until 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock or 5 o'clock in the morning. They went home quickly and then came right back here to open the session at 9 o'clock or 10 o'clock, and of course they had to be here an hour or so earlier than that.

Muftiah, we cannot possibly--if I took an hour, which I could take with my 1 minute as majority leader--but if I took that hour or if I took multiple hours, I could not express the depths of our gratitude to you or the respect we have for the professionalism that you have demonstrated in the performance of your duties and the extraordinary affection we have for you as our friend, as our colleague. And we wish you the very, very best of success in the years ahead. God bless you, and thank you.

I thank the gentleman from Tennessee, the chairman of the committee, for yielding. I congratulate Mr. Hall, my good friend from Texas, for his leadership. And I rise in support of the America COMPETES Act.

I want to congratulate Mr. Gordon in particular. Mr. Gordon has been focused on the subject matter of this bill--innovation, entrepreneurial efforts, science, technology, math, and engineering efforts--to make our economy more competitive worldwide and more vibrant here at home. This bill creates jobs in the short term and builds a strong foundation for prosperity in the long term. That's what we need to be focusing on. That's what Americans want us to focus on. They want us to get jobs now. But they also want to have a resilient, growing economy for the future. We can accomplish both goals by expanding our support for research and development so that the United States remains the world's technology leader.

This bill establishes innovative technology Federal loan guarantees for small- and medium-sized manufacturers. Those loans, which are especially needed at a time when credit is tight, will help our businesses keep pace with a changing economy, increase productivity, and hold their own with overseas competitors. By supporting innovation, as this bill does, this bill will help those businesses save and create jobs. It will also promote job growth and innovation on the regional level by creating regional innovation clusters--collections of local businesses that collaborate on emerging technology in similar fields.

As Chairman Bart Gordon of the Science and Technology Committee has observed, ``Clusters can strengthen or revive a region's economy and can advance the work being done in their field by bringing their leaders together to share ideas and build off one another.'' I agree with that comment. That's why I think they're so important.

However, as Mike Muro of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution points out, America ``lags other nations in fostering these distributed, bottom-up systems of business development, innovation, and talent matching. The time has come,'' Mr. Muro went on, ``for America to make regional industry networks a defining aspect of the Nation's effort to catalyze the next era of high-quality job creation and growth.'' Bart Gordon and the Science and Tech Committee have done that. I congratulate them for that. It's an encouraging step that this bill does just that.

In addition, the America COMPETES Act helps ensure that our workforce will meet the challenges of the 21st century economy, by investing in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It reauthorizes and increases funding for the vital National Science Foundation, which promotes cutting-edge research by funding innovation in fields from computer science to mathematics to genomics.

Madam Chair, Federal support for research is one of the best investments we can make. I congratulate Mr. Gordon, again, not only on his leadership on this bill, but on his leadership through the decades that he has served in this institution on these very issues. Federally supported research gave us GPS, the computer mouse, computer-aided design, and the Internet. There's no telling the ways in which it might shape our lives in the years to come. The legacy that Mr. Gordon will leave--unfortunately, he's leaving our midst at the end of this year, voluntarily, deciding to do some other things. I congratulate him, though, on the extraordinary contributions he's made during his years of service here.

In a competitive world economy, the National Science Foundation reported that our R&D expenditure has fallen as a share of the world total, as the growing Asian economies gain a greater share. This bill can, and will, help reverse that trend. The America COMPETES Act won bipartisan support the first time Congress authorized it in 2007. I hope and expect that that bill will garner such bipartisan support that it deserves this time around.

Again, in closing, Madam Chair, let me congratulate Mr. Gordon and thank Mr. Hall for his role.

I thank the Republican whip for yielding.

On Tuesday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m. On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business. On Friday, no votes are expected.

We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of business tomorrow. In addition, we will consider H.R. 5116, the America COMPETES Act.

We are still working on the budget. I will hopefully bring that forward when it is ready, obviously when the Budget Committee considers it. As it relates to the Afghan-Pakistan supplemental, the President requested, as you know, approximately $33 billion in his budget at the beginning of the year. The Defense Department says that the money that they have will be depleted sometime this summer. It's important, obviously, therefore, that we move soon. And I hope to do that.

I would hope that when we move this bill forward that we will see bipartisan support for it, obviously to support our troops in harm's way, carrying out a policy that I know, as the gentleman has observed before, the Republican whip himself and others have indicated their support of the President's policy in Afghanistan. This money for Afghanistan and Pakistan will fund those efforts. And I am hopeful when we do bring it forward that we will have bipartisan support for that piece of legislation.

I am hopeful that that will be the case, yes.

The committee has not acted, so I can't answer the second question per se on the 1 or 2 years. I will tell the gentleman that it is still my expectation, as Chairman Levin said, that that bill, the jobs bill with the extenders in it, will come forward within the next 2 weeks.

Chairman Baucus and Chairman Levin are discussing that bill. I am hopeful that they will reach agreement and can reach agreement on a bipartisan basis in the House and in the Senate. We are working toward that end. We believe this will be an important bill for business, an important bill for job growth, and an important bill to extend some of those items that, as the gentleman knows, some of them will expire in terms of authorization either by the end of this month or by June 2.

I would prefer that perhaps we do it for a longer period of time than 1 year. Two years would be acceptable. However, the problem, of course, is paying for things. As the gentleman knows, when these bills were considered, one of the things that the minority did with their MTR was to include more spending in and strike the pay-fors, which exacerbated the bill to the tune of about $100 billion. So I think the committee is dealing with what they can pay for.

There will be some things, obviously, that we have accepted as emergencies caused by the severe economic downturn. But I think the length of time will probably be dictated by the issue of how we pay for things.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 10 a.m. tomorrow, and further when the House adjourns on that day, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 11, 2010, for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady for yielding me this time, and I thank Mr. Shuster for helping bring this bill to the floor and thank Ms. Corrine Brown from Florida, who does such an extraordinary job.

Mr. Speaker, I rise as a proud sponsor of this resolution which I have worked on for a long period of time. It is a facet of Capitol Hill that we have to pass a resolution to approve and allow the Greater Washington Soap Box Derby to hold the 69th Annual Greater Washington Soap Box Derby on the Capitol grounds on June 19.

Since 1938, when Norman Rocca beat out 223 other racers to win the inaugural Washington race, soapbox derby racing has had a long history in our Nation's Capital. Over nearly seven decades, thousands of the region's young people have come to Washington to take their place in a great race and a great tradition. Whether they were racing down New Hampshire Avenue, or at the current site coasting down Capitol Hill, the event's essential ingredients have remained the same: homemade, gravity-powered cars and the spirit of competition. America's soapbox derbies have rightly been called ``the greatest amateur racing event in the world.''

The boys and girls who participate, many of them sponsored by community

groups, police departments or fire departments, don't just gain value experience in building and engineering; they learn about the value of hard work and fair competition.

As the Representative from Maryland's Fifth Congressional District, I am also proud to point out that my district has been the home to a string of soapbox derby champions.

In 2007, Kacie Rader, a neighbor of mine from Mechanicsville, Maryland, won the Greater Washington race and went on to become the first Marylander to win the national soapbox derby title, beating out 550 other local champions.

In 2008, Courtney Rayle, also from Mechanicsville, won the Greater Washington race and also went on to win at the national race in Akron, Ohio.

And finally, last year, her brother Justin Rayle, made it three Greater Washington wins in a row for Maryland's Fifth Congressional District. This is not fixed, I want to tell you. These are just great kids, and we are excited about the soapbox derby.

June's race will be the continuation of a proud tradition for our country and its Capital, and I thank Chairwoman Brown and Ranking Member Shuster for their support and help in bringing this resolution to the floor.

Madam Speaker, I rise on behalf of myself, Representative Frank Wolf, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Representative Jim Moran, Representative Chris Van Hollen, and Representative Gerald Connolly to recognize James E. Bennett, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, Airports Authority, who has announced his retirement after 14 years of exceptional public service to the agency, the region, and the Nation. During his tenure at the Airports Authority, Mr. Bennett expertly guided the significant expansion and modernization of Washington Dulles International Airport and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, while simultaneously undertaking the challenge of managing the Dulles Toll Road and constructing the long planned Metrorail line to Dulles Airport and Loudoun County.

Whether one is a visitor to either of these world-class airports or watching the construction of the Metrorail line, it is not difficult to appreciate the bold vision and many accomplishments of Jim Bennett. Reagan National and Dulles International Airports combined served a total of more than 40 million passengers in 2009. In difficult economic times, both airports retained service to all top 50 domestic markets, bringing valuable, new air service to the metropolitan Washington region. Mr. Bennett's leadership also brought to completion $3 billion of capital development projects, providing improved passenger service and enhanced ability to accommodate increased air service and passenger volume.

At Dulles International, a new security mezzanine and the state-of- the-art AeroTrain, were recently put into service. These monumental improvements return Dulles International to the form and function that Architect Eero Saarinen, envisioned for this beautiful landmark when it opened in 1962. At Reagan National, Mr. Bennett guided the addition of expanded parking and completion of a new Public Safety Communications Center to expand the Airports Authority's emergency operations capabilities.

In everything Jim Bennett has done, the interests of the public have been paramount. He has guided reinvestments in Washington Dulles and Reagan National Airports ensuring that these valuable facilities are equipped to serve travelers throughout the next decades, continuing to be important economic catalysts, providing jobs and business development opportunities for the region. He took on the Dulles Metrorail Project, proposing an innovative financing plan to bring transit service to Dulles Airport and the entire Dulles Corridor. The project is on budget and on schedule, indicative of Mr. Bennett's stellar management skills.

This region has had the unique benefit of having had one the country's finest airport managers, as well as a consummate public servant, in Jim Bennett. We all owe him a debt of gratitude for his leadership, integrity, humility and inspiration. I ask that my colleagues join me and the National Capital region in expressing our heartfelt gratitude to Jim Bennett for his vision and legacy of transportation improvements that he has left for the region and the Nation.

I thank the gentleman from Colorado.

I rise in strong support of the bill. I rise in strong support of the underlying legislation. I am pleased to join my colleague from Puerto Rico (Mr. Pierluisi) in support of the rule and the bill.

I know that Mr. Pierluisi, who was elected to represent Puerto Rico in the Congress of the United States as their representative, has worked long and hard on this bill, as have so many of his predecessors. When I came to Congress, Carlos Barcelo was the representative of Puerto Rico, and he was for this. That was 30 years ago, and we're still talking about this. The gentleman from Puerto Rico and Mr. Serrano make points that I would make.

Now, the gentleman who preceded me said that we are rushing this bill. This bill was reported out of committee last July, 30-8. This bill has 181 cosponsors,

broad bipartisan support in this Congress. And so we have brought this bill to the floor for consideration. It offers amendments to those who are opposed to this bill. It offers amendments, frankly, that I think are extraneous to the basic premise of this bill as well. The fact of the matter is that America prides itself on being the beacon for democracy.

What this bill does is celebrate democracy in Puerto Rico. I am grieved from time to time when I read that some of our fellow American citizens in Puerto Rico talk about the United States treating Puerto Rico as a colony. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not interested in having colonies. I don't perceive and have never perceived the United States as an imperial power with colonies. I perceive the United States of America as priding itself on being supportive of self-determination, of being committed to the premise that people freely ought to be able to come together and determine their own status.

That's what this legislation does. I don't think it does more than that or less than that. Unlike previous legislation, it does not say that if in fact the voters of Puerto Rico vote one way or the other, that action will automatically follow by this Congress. This Congress will then have to make a determination as to what relationship we want to have to Puerto Rico in a democratic fashion in this House and in the Senate, as should be the case.

The President of the United States has said he would want to see the status of Puerto Rico resolved. I want to see the status of Puerto Rico resolved. And, yes, if the citizens of Puerto Rico, under this bill, decide that they want to remain a Commonwealth and vote not to change, that will be the conclusion. If on the other hand they decide they want to have change, then they will have the options that the United Nations has set forth for colonies to become free nations.

I myself do not refer to Puerto Rico as a colony; some in Puerto Rico do. The fact of the matter is that it gives three options which are the three options sanctioned by the United Nations, and that is, for a free people to self-determine if they want to be an independent nation, or, alternatively, that they want to be a State, or, alternatively, they want to have a free association with the United States. That latter category, as I suppose similar to the relationship that England has to Australia and Great Britain or that Micronesia has, or some other entity that has its own independent laws, it's a sovereign nation, as is Canada; but the Queen of England is the head of their government. That may be somewhat like a free association. But whatever the people of Puerto Rico decide, it seems to me that I would be, as one Member, prepared to honor.

I am hopeful that today, after 111 years that Mr. Serrano spoke about and that Mr. Pierluisi has talked about, that we do in fact give to the Puerto Rican people the option that they deserve to have and that our principles demand they have.

I hope my colleagues will support this rule. I hope they will support the bill, and I hope they will oppose amendments that will undermine this opportunity that can be a historic opportunity, not just for the people of Puerto Rico, but for the people of the United States of America to live out its pledge to peoples that have an association with us and, indeed, the principle that we ask other nations to honor as well of self-determination.

I thank the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis) for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, how much time remains?

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I rise in opposition to this motion.

I traveled throughout the Soviet Union to captive nations with many of you, and I rose in those nations and said to the leaders, You need to give your people self-determination.

Many of you have said the same thing on this floor. You've said it about tyrant governments that have kept their peoples from practicing their own religions, from speaking their own languages, from adopting their own laws. You have spoken out against it. They were foreign nations, and it was easy to do. But now we talk about Puerto Rico, a territory of the United States of America. What Mr. Pierluisi seeks to do, what his Governor wants to do, what two-thirds of his legislature want to do--the senate and the house--is to give them the opportunity to exercise that self-determination.

Now, on this floor, we have adopted an amendment, for which many have spoken, that we ought to give four alternatives rather than three. We've done that. There will now be four alternatives for the people of Puerto Rico on the second ballot. Let us now defeat this amendment designed only to defeat this bill.

Hawaii was not made to do this. As the gentleman from Alaska, Don Young, will tell you and as he said on the floor, Alaska was not made to do this, and we did not ask that to occur in any one of the captive nations to which we spoke. Ronald Reagan did not ask for that. Let us not ask for it. Let us give an honest up-or-down vote to the people of Puerto Rico, who for 112 years have perceived themselves as a colony.

Now, there are some who want statehood. There are some who want independence and sovereign status. There are some who want commonwealth. There are, perhaps, some who want a relationship with the United States somewhat like Australia has with Great Britain. As the gentleman from Puerto Rico said, do not diminish this principle, however, with the politics of the future. This will be debated when and if Puerto Rico asks for statehood.

Your Republican Governor asks for a vote for this bill and against this motion to recommit. I ask my party to do the same. Give Puerto Rico its chance today.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the ordering of the yeas and nays on the motion to suspend the rules and agree to House Resolution 375 be vacated, to the end that the resolution be considered as adopted in the form considered by the House on Tuesday April 27, 2010.