Floor Statements

I thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at 12:30 a.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 9 a.m. for morning-hour debate and 10 a.m. for legislative business. On Wednesday and Thursday, 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, the complete list of which will be announced by the close of business today.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, we will consider further action on H.R. 3326, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2010.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

That is my hope. It may not be my expectation. It is my hope, and it is my plan, but obviously, as the gentleman well knows, having been in this position in the past, that is somewhat contingent upon what our colleagues in the other body do. But it is my intention, and I have announced that December 18 is the last day on which we are planning to meet. I very much want Members to be able to be home Christmas week. But as the gentleman knows as well as I do, that is dependent upon what our colleagues across the Capitol do.

Clearly, we have now passed most of our appropriations bills except for the Defense bill, so we've funded most of government. The Senate still has to enact, of course, the omnibus that we sent to them 2 days ago, which has six of the appropriations bills in it. One remains. So that if they pass that, 11 out of the 12 would have been passed. But obviously, we want to make sure that we pass our Defense bill as well.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

As is true of almost all pieces of legislation that are pending, that will depend upon Senate action. And until such time as we know what the Senate is going to do, it's almost impossible for me to say with any clarity and assurance that we are going to be able to take up health care or any other piece of legislation because, obviously, the Senate action will be essential for that to happen.

Again, with respect to the Defense appropriation bill, it is essential that we pass that bill. It's essential that we pass the debt limit. It's essential that we extend, in my opinion, unemployment insurance and COBRA. It's essential that we extend the Patriot Act for at least 90 days while the legislative committees are trying to complete that. So there are a number of things, clearly, that I think it's necessary for us to do because of the time limits. But as my friend knows, health care does not have a time limit and will depend upon what action the Senate takes and when it takes it.

I don't know that the Speaker and the codel are going to be gone if, in fact, we have business to do.

I think you're probably scheduled to be on that codel. I know I am. But we're going to be here working if we have work to do to complete our business. And I will be here.

The fact is, as you know, the Copenhagen conference ends I think on December 19 or maybe December 18. The Speaker had contemplated taking a delegation to that conference--which we think is extraordinarily important--but that will be contingent upon what our schedule looks like for December 17 and 18 and what we've done and accomplished by the evening of December 16.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I think to the extent the Americans are considering that, they are considering that, for the bulk of this decade, I would say, we were spending money that we didn't have on a regular basis at very high levels, which is why we went from the $5.6 trillion surplus to the $10 trillion deficit.

Having said that, we have passed a debt extension, as the gentleman knows, and that debt extension is in the control of the United States Senate. They can take that off the table and pass that debt extension. So while it needs to be passed, we have done our work here. The Senate has that debt extension.

I can't imagine there are any of us that don't want the United States of America, as we would expect of all of ourselves and of others, to pay its debts that it has incurred.

But it could be accomplished in a number of ways, and the Senate has a debt extension bill, and if we don't act further on that, they can take that up off the floor or the desk and pass it. That is one option available. The other option the gentleman refers to is doing a new debt extension at a larger number, and that decision has not yet been made.

But I want to emphasize the Senate has on its desk a debt extension that will make sure that the United States of America pays the bills that it has incurred.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

First of all, let me say with respect to COBRA and unemployment insurance, I wouldn't call that a stimulus plan; I would call that a tourniquet plan to try to stop the bleeding of some people who have been badly damaged by the extraordinary depths to which this economy fell starting in December of 2007, leading to unemployment in the last month of the last administration of 741,000 jobs lost.

As the gentleman knows, this past month we had only 11,000 jobs lost. That's significant progress but not success until we get into creating jobs.

We clearly believe that one of the important things that we want to do before we leave here is a jobs bill. A stimulus tends to be viewed as a more broadly-based piece of legislation. We've done a lot of that, as the gentleman knows, with his vote sometimes and without his vote sometimes, over the last 12 months.

The fact is that we want to address trying to create more jobs, get our economy going, make lending available for small businesses, expand our infrastructure--which is a direct not only creation of jobs but addressing infrastructure--roads, bridges, highways--as well as sewer and water systems critical to our economy, critical to the health and welfare of our people.

So we're looking at that as we speak, and we're trying to put together a package that the Senate may agree to and that we could pass before we leave here.

With respect to the No Cost Jobs proposal, as I said at the White House with you, I would be glad to discuss it, and I do look forward to discussing it with you. We can discuss it further this afternoon, some of the proposals that you have. I will tell you though, my friend, I have found very few things in life which are free.

If we are going to create jobs, if we are going to expand our economy, to pretend to the American public that it's free, just as your tax cuts were not free--any tax cuts are not for free. It sounds like it, but then there are consequences. And we believe that, for instance, the TARP funds that your motion to recommit sought to eliminate were essentially, while targeted at the time, really were for the purpose, you and I both voted for them when they were adopted, initially, they were for the purpose of trying to bring our economy from the depths to which it had fallen, preclude it from falling off the cliff and to bring our economy back.

I would suggest to you that one of the reasons we don't want to see these funds eliminated after they have helped the banks is we want us to use some of those funds to help Main Street, small business and job creation.

So, with respect to jobs, we are very focused on jobs. We look forward to working with you on that effort and your side of the aisle and suggestions that you have. And if we can reach consensus, I think the American people will be very pleased.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Very frankly, he says most people believe that. The polls don't reflect that. A lot of Members on both sides don't believe that. And that's why these bills are controversial on your side and on my side. I think longer term that is the fact. We have people, however, who are having a challenge feeding their families, keeping their homes and paying their bills right now as we speak. It's not free for them. They need help.

On our side of the aisle, we think we need to give them help. Yes, we gave help to the banks. Yes, it stabilized them. I voted for that. You voted for that. I think it was the right thing to do. But those moneys, however, were to stabilize the economy. Now, they were targeted on banks, which were the immediate problem. There are an awful lot of my constituents and a lot of people around the country saying, Hey, you can help the banks, but guess what? I'm not there. My family is not there. My small business is not there. I need help.

Our proposition, under those circumstances, is, yes, the good news is, we didn't have to use all the money that President Bush asked for. President Bush used about half of it before he left. President Obama has used about half of it for the purposes intended. We also used some of it, as you know, for General Motors. That wasn't in the bill. But President Bush decided those funds ought to be used for that purpose, and Chrysler as well, to stabilize the automobile industry.

Now, I will tell my friend with respect to our discussions at the White House, and I understand we have a difference of agreement. We differ fundamentally on how to get this economy moving. Your party voted to a person against the economic package that we had in 1993, and we voted pretty much to a person, not unanimously, against your plan. I think the plan in 1990 worked. I think the plan in 2001 and 2003 didn't work. And I think statistically that is irrefutable. And we fell, as a result of a plan you supported, into the worst recession we've had in three-quarters of a century.

What we are saying is we need to take some of that money, we need to make sure that Main Street, bank lending to small business so they can stay in business and create jobs is a good use of those funds, because we are not done yet. Your leader, Mr. Boehner, said on this floor, it was over, the recession is over. I think what he meant was, correctly, that the economists say essentially we have bottomed out and we are coming up.

I suggest to you we bottomed out because we not only passed a bill that you and I voted for, but we passed a bill that you didn't vote for, and that is the Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Since that time, we have created 600,000 to 1.4 million jobs. According to the CBO, the gross domestic product for the first time since the third quarter 2008 has grown, actually 2007, has grown to where it was the last quarter of the last administration, 6.4 percent decrease. It grew 2.8 percent. That is almost a little over a 9-point turnaround. That's good news for the economy. But there are a lot of people still struggling.

So, yes, we believe that we need to have a jobs bill. And we think it is appropriate to address the funds that we've already authorized, not new funds but that we've already authorized, to try to bring this economy back, to not just look at it globally, but to look at individuals who are hurting. We want to apply those funds to those folks who are hurting and try to get them in their homes, get them a job, and get their families more stable.

I thank the gentleman.

I'm going to give him the answer he knows is absolutely crystal clear. The answer to that is ``no.'' The bills are not ready to come to the floor. They need to come out of the Ways and Means Committee, as you know. They are not reported out of the Ways and Means Committee, and we are not going to bring them to the floor next week. If we brought them to the floor next week, and the gentleman knows, they would have no immediate impact.

The gentleman also knows, and has correctly stated, that I certainly am for and have been publicly reported over the last 6 months or more, I guess over a year, reported as being in favor of passing the Colombia agreement and passing the Panama agreement. I think the Korea agreement is a little more complicated in terms of making sure our markets are open to our automobiles, to our beef and other agricultural products to make sure we have a fair exchange. But Korea, obviously, is one of our largest trading partners. As the gentleman knows, that's an important agreement. We ought to give attention to it.

The gentleman knows that we are not going to bring those to the floor next week. The gentleman also knows that if we did and we passed them, and the Senate passed them somehow, that it would not make an immediate impact. You and I both agree that over the long term, it would be a positive impact. Others don't agree with that, but the answer to your question is ``no.''

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

First of all, the gentleman has an inclination to state premises that we all agree on things that we don't necessarily all agree on.

Clearly, we want to give notice. Clearly, we believe we ought to give fair notice. As it relates to the bill that was considered today, that bill has had over 3 months of hearings and has been on the table for a long period of time. The gentleman is correct that the final bill and the manager's amendment did not have 72 hours, but almost all the components within it had been known to everybody as proposals that were on the table either in committee or substitute committee markup for some period of time.

With respect to the bill that you referred to that we passed on the six appropriations bills, we, of course, had numerous committee hearings, subcommittee markup, full committee markup, House consideration. We passed all six of those bills through this House. The gentleman is correct that there were amendments included in there, and there was notice of all those, but I would have liked more time.

The problem is, of course, we have come to what is, as the gentleman pointed out, a target date of the 18th. We still have important work to do. We intend to do that. We are going to give as much notice as we can do and meet our responsibilities to the American public.

The gentleman smiles when I say as much notice as we can give. The gentleman surely will not say, because the gentleman is honest, he understands this process as well as I do. He and I have been here for some years. I have been here a little longer. When his side was in control, as he knows, some majority pieces of legislation were considered within hours on this floor, the prescription drug bill being a specific example, the biggest entitlement reform we had had in a long period of time. You reported it at some hour in the a.m., 12 or 1 o'clock a.m., and reported it on the floor a little after 9 a.m.

We considered the bill that afternoon and passed it that day or early the next day. And that wasn't even, as I recall, at the end of the session. But the gentleman knows, as a practicality, both leaderships find it necessary, in order to complete the business that the public expects us to complete, to sometimes move that, when agreement can be reached, at the end of a session. Unfortunately, I've been at this legislative process for over 40 years, and Members like to delay until such time as they think delay is no longer an option.

Will the gentleman yield before he yields back his time?

I appreciate the gentleman's observation that you were let go. I want to make it clear to the gentleman, I do not believe you were let go because you failed to meet a time frame for reporting bills. I believe, frankly, the substance of our work is that which the public makes a judgment on. And, frankly, we think that the reason that they turned to us in 2006 and 2008 was because they thought that the programs and policies you were pursuing weren't working for our country or for the economy or for them, with all due respect.

But I continue to tell the gentleman that we want to try to make sure, as you did--sometimes--that you, our Members, the public have sufficient knowledge to make the decisions that are called upon for them to make.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Monday next for morning-hour debate.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a longtime constituent of mine, Frank G. Forgione, Sr., for his outstanding dedication to music, service, and country.

From his earliest days, Frank--the son of two musicians--demonstrated an appreciation and recognition of the power of music. At age 11 he began studying music with Frank Holt, a percussionist for noted bandmaster and composer John Philip Sousa. At the encouragement of his instructors, he auditioned and was accepted into the Navy School of Music here in Washington in 1938.

In December 1941, Frank was stationed at Pearl Harbor aboard the USS Oglala. During the attack of December 7, the Oglala fell victim to the Japanese attack and sank. Fortunately, Frank was able to make it to a dock. He often said that every day he lived after that was a gift.

In 1951, he became head of the percussion department at his alma mater, the Navy School of Music. Just 10 years later, he founded and led the U.S. Navy Special Show Band--the first Navy Show Band--on a tour in South America. Called the Navy's Goodwill Ambassadors, the band toured through South America during a period of unrest.

When the band encountered anti-American sentiment or threats at their shows, Frank directed the band to perform, believing that the universality of music would be enough to win over the crowd. More often than not, his instincts proved correct. The band went on to make several more tours throughout South America and the rest of the world.

Frank Forgione's service did not go unnoticed. He became the first musician since John Philip Sousa to receive the Secretary of the Navy's Commendation Medal.

In 1972, Frank retired with the rank of Chief Warrant Officer. Retirement did not ebb his desire to serve. Inspired by his tours in South America, Frank dedicated himself to relieving the poverty he witnessed while on the continent. For the next 16 years, he enlisted many national corporations to donate food, educational materials, medicine, and other essential supplies to help improve the living conditions for those less fortunate.

In addition, Frank continued fulfilling his love of music. He created the Fort Washington Continentals, an award-winning youth drum corps located in Prince Georges County. The corps was selected to lead Washington's Bicentennial Parade.

At age 70, Frank became bandmaster for the New York Military Academy in Cornwall-on-Hudson, touring extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Australia. While there he was given the honorary rank of Army Colonel. He retired again in 2005 at the age of 87. Though Frank passed away on July 27, 2009, it is undeniable that his spirit and appreciation for music have remained with those he touched throughout his life.

Madam Speaker, Frank G. Forgione, Sr. was blessed with the gift of music and committed to serving others. He helped to make the U.S. Navy, the State of Maryland, and communities throughout the world a better place. I urge my colleagues to join with me in paying tribute to this extraordinary individual for a life well lived and in offering sincerest condolences to his friends and family on their loss.

Madam Speaker, I rise to honor Freeman Hrabowski, President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who has recently been honored as one of Time magazine's 10 Best College Presidents.

President Hrabowski's deep commitment to fostering talented students, especially in science and math, has helped increase UMBC's number of African-American science and engineering majors sevenfold. Today, UMBC is one of America's biggest producers of African-American science and engineering Ph.D.s. As a fellow college president put it, President Hrabowski ``has taught all of higher education that minority and low- income students . . . can meet the highest standards and excel.''

Those high standards are, importantly, a matter of national competitiveness--but they are also a measure of this nation's promise of equality. As a child in Alabama, Freeman Hrabowski remembers Martin Luther King, Jr. telling civil rights marchers: ``What you do this day will have an impact on generations as yet unborn.'' Today, at places like UMBC, that promise is coming true in the lives of the young men and women who are making the most of what those marchers won for them.

I join the members of the Maryland House delegation in thanking President Hrabowski for his commitment to his students and his extraordinary contribution to higher education. We congratulate him for this much-deserved recognition of his achievements.

I thank my friend, Mr. Pomeroy, the representative of the Ways and Means Committee, for yielding, and I want to thank him for his efforts in pursuing this bill and introducing this bill and effecting the policy that currently exists in this country of a generous but fair provision for exemptions on estates. That exemption, as has been, I'm sure, debated today,

provides for $3.5 million for each spouse, or $7 million a family, for an exemption under the estate tax. However, what the Republican policy did was create a situation where there is no certainty, no ability to plan, and no confidence of what the tax policy will be in the coming years.

I, therefore, rise to support this bill which permanently extends estate tax relief to American families and which strikes a fair balance between what we owe to families, farmers, and small businesses, and what we owe to our country's fiscal future. This bill simply continues present law at current rates and exemptions. But it does not abolish the estate tax altogether, which I think would be a mistake. In fact, Teddy Roosevelt thought it would be a mistake. Teddy Roosevelt thought it would be a mistake because he did not want to see the constant accretion in just a few very wealthy people in America of the wealth of this country.

Abolishing the estate tax would add billions and billions to our deficit, as will happen next year if we do not pass this bill. And while a small number of wealthy families would benefit, the growth of our economy as a whole would suffer. So would vital programs on which millions of Americans rely. The estate tax also sets a limit on the concentration of inherited wealth from generation to generation. That's what Teddy Roosevelt, Republican President the early part of last century, thought was appropriate in American policy, which, at a time when this country's middle class is truly struggling, would make inequality even starker and more damaging to our country's social fabric.

That is why advocates of a dynamic economy have supported an estate tax for generations. When first proposing an estate tax, Theodore Roosevelt said, ``The man of great wealth owes a particular obligation to the state because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government.''

And Bill Gates, along with Warren Buffett, one of the two wealthiest people in America, recently argued that the estate tax, ``puts a brake on the concentration of wealth and power, generates substantial revenue from those most able to pay, and encourages billions of dollars in charitable giving each year. The estate tax is not only fair,'' Bill Gates said, ``but an essential component of our Nation's economic dynamism.'' That's Bill Gates, who will, I think, be perceived by the American public as having probably the possibility of one of the largest estates.

Finally, it's important that this bill is permanent, and not a temporary fix. That guarantees families, farmers, and small businesses the certainty they need to plan ahead rationally. President Bush's estate tax policy, by contrast, gave the country anything but certainty. It phased out the estate tax, repealed it entirely for 2010, and then brought it back, at 2001 levels, for 2011. In other words, 3.5 today, zero tomorrow, and 1 in 2011. No accountant or estate planner is going to look you in the eye and say, Well, based upon that policy, I can give you some rational advice.

That was truly an irresponsible tax and fiscal policy brought to us, very frankly, by the minority party when it was in power. It made it impossible for families to plan with confidence for the future. It also hid the policy's true cost to our national budget. This bill can change that. It is in keeping with President Obama's pledge of a new honesty in budgeting.

I also want to point out that passing this bill is also an important step toward fiscal responsibility because attached to it is the House's support for statutory PAYGO, as it's affectionately referred to by some, me included. Now, let me say something about statutory PAYGO. My friends on the Republican side of the aisle are not for it. They're not for it because they wanted to make deep revenue cuts and didn't want to pay for them. They wanted my children to pay for them and my grandchildren to pay for them. And very frankly, that's who's going to pay for them. Those of us of my age are not going to pay for them because we incurred real debt by not paying for what we buy, and created extraordinary deficits over the last 8 years of the Bush administration.

As we know, the principle of paying for what we buy was central to turning record deficits of 1993, of 1992, of 1991, of 1990, and all of the years of the 1980s, turning record deficits into record surpluses. It was statutory PAYGO that allowed us to do that, along, obviously, with the extraordinary growth in the economy that occurred under an economic program put in place in 1993, for which none of my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle voted. It can be an important step in our return to fiscal health today.

By passing this bill, we can also strengthen our commitment to pay for all new policies that reduce revenues or expand entitlements. In fact, I wish that this extension of estate tax relief were also paid for. It is not, of course. Why is it not paid for? Because we can't pay for it at a time when we are at great economic risk. We can't depress the economy. We need to stimulate our economy. But if we put in place PAYGO, we will give additional confidence to those who are prepared to invest their capital that we will continue to have sound fiscal policies.

It's unlikely that we will have the votes to pay for this extension of policies with bipartisan support. I choose to support the strongest version of PAYGO possible. That is the PAYGO provision in this bill. So, on the one hand, we bring in this bill estate planning rationality, substance, and confidence. And on the other hand, we adopt once again in this House the premise of statutory PAYGO, which got us to 4 years of surplus during the Clinton administration, the only 4 years of surplus in the lifetime of anybody in this Chamber.

I hope that the Senate will join the House in taking this essential first step out of America's deep fiscal hole. My friend, Mr. Brady, thinks that they will not. Perhaps he is correct. If he is correct, it will be unfortunate. My friend, I know, has been a proponent for the years he's been here, and some others have been, of going to zero, no estate tax. Very frankly, because of that position, we have not been able to reach compromise and, therefore, we find ourselves in this untenable position.

I urge all of my colleagues to support this bill, which makes a fair estate tax permanent, makes estate planning more reliable, and makes our commitment to fiscal discipline clear and unequivocal.

I thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning- hour debate and noon for legislative business, with votes postponed until Tuesday. On Tuesday the House will meet at 9 a.m. for morning- hour debate and 10 a.m. for legislative business. Members are advised votes could occur as early as 10 a.m. on Tuesday.

On 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. for legislative business.

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.--I don't have the number yet, of the tax extenders bill of 2009, and H.R. 4173, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

First of all, let me say to the gentleman that it is my hope that we will adjourn the first session of the Congress from the House's perspective by the 18th. With respect to the bills that we are considering, obviously we have seven appropriation bills that have not yet been enacted. The continuing resolution expires on the 18th of December.

It is my hope that before that time we will have provision for the passage of all seven of the appropriation bills, either individually, which may be difficult because the Senate has not passed three of those bills on its floor. In one form or another we will have all seven of those bills passed prior to the 18th.

The Speaker, Leader Reid, and I all want to avoid another continuing resolution, which we think is not the best way to move forward. We are hopeful that we can accomplish that.

In addition, the regulatory reform bill you heard will be next week, the tax extenders. We have the unemployment insurance. We have the COBRA extension. Both of those expire on December 31. We have the PATRIOT Act, the provisions of which expire on December 31. We want to address that. We have got highway reauthorization, which also expires on December 31. We want to address that. And we have, I'm sure, other bills that we will be considering.

As you know, I know you're happy about it, I'm happy about it, Iran sanctions will be on the calendar as well, on the Suspension Calendar the week after next.

I thank the gentleman. If the gentleman will yield.

I appreciate the bipartisan work. I see the ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my friend, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, who has worked very hard on this as well with Mr. Berman. I'm pleased this is coming. It's very important that we send a very strong message as we see the Iranian Government and the President say they are going to do one thing, but apparently never do it. So I think it's appropriate that we act.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

He is correct, I have made that representation; and I want to try to accomplish that objective. As the gentleman also knows, on both sides we have experienced this issue, at the end of a session, as I fervently hope we are closely achieving, at the end of a session obviously when you're having conference reports, it's not necessarily possible to do that if you can't get the conference reports moved quickly enough by the time you want to adjourn.

However, having said that, the gentleman is correct, the regulatory reform bill that is going to be reported out by the committee has been reported out, will be available this evening, and will be available--I don't expect to have that on the floor any sooner than Tuesday of next week.

So there will be plenty of time to review that piece of legislation. As you know, that has had extensive hearings. Two of the bills that are included within the framework of that bill we've already passed, as you know. So for that bill there will be a lot of time.

With respect to the omnibus that you referred to, we have discretely, individually, considered each one of those bills. They've passed the House. The Senate and the House have reached agreement, I think, or hopefully, are on the verge of reaching agreement on those bills individually so that they can be included. The Senate, as I pointed out, has not considered three of the bills on the floor, and I'm not sure, given their focus on health care, that they will be able to do so. So from that standpoint, they would be included in a conference report as opposed to considered on the Senate floor. They've been considered on the House floor, and we will give as much notice as we possibly can on those. But the good news is we've considered those individually on the floor, so the overwhelming majority of those bills are well-known to Members.

I will choose my words carefully. As opposed to expect, I hope that there will be a bill. Clearly, the Senate is debating that bill. We believe that this is one of the most important bills that any Member will have considered during the course of their tenure in this House, including myself, and I've been here, as you know, some time. The Senate is debating those bills now. Senator Reid has had great difficulty getting this bill to move along in an orderly fashion, which, I think, makes it impossible to predict when the Senate will be able to pass it. I can tell you that I know that Leader Reid is hopeful that this bill will be considered over the next 10, 12 days, and that they will be able to pass it prior to the 18th of December. And I'm hopeful that they can as well.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. It's my expectation that it will not. But I want to give this caveat. If, in fact the Senate passes its health care reform bill early enough so that we may have a conference and conclude a conference so that at some time in December we could pass a conference report, with that caveat--now whether that will happen or not, obviously I am not able to predict that, but other than that circumstance, it's my expectation that we will not be in the week of the 21st or the week of the 28th.

Nor for that matter, as the schedule, as you know, reflects, the week after the 1st, which is the 3rd, I guess.

Not only do I expect it, my belief is that it's mandatory that we do so. Obviously, the United States has never defaulted on its debt, and to do so would cause international disruption in the financial markets, further exacerbating an already difficult economic situation for our country and for countries around the world. So it is not only my expectation, but I believe it is absolutely essential that we do that. As the gentleman knows, we have passed already, in this House, an extension of the debt. The Senate has not passed that at this point in time, but I do expect it to be included in one of the pieces of legislation that we consider. I think it is absolutely essential and, in my view, whether you like the debt or don't--I mean, none of us like it--it would be irresponsible for the Congress not to pass a debt extension for debts that it has incurred. I yield back.

Well, that has not been finally decided at this point in time. We'll have to wait to see what the Senate feels it can do in one of the conferences that we have. As the gentleman probably knows, under Senate procedure, while they're considering the health bill, the only thing they can rise for, without the necessity to have a 60 vote to go back into consideration of the health bill, is a conference report. So my expectation is it will be in a conference report.

Well, the gentleman, of course, wants to use language that we're not using. We're focused on jobs. Stimulus is a broader reach, frankly,

than we are looking at. We do believe, though, as the gentleman has expressed on a number of occasions, that jobs is the focus. And we are looking at legislation which will help to create jobs, expand our economy, ensure our growth.

As the gentleman knows, the CBO released their report on the Recovery Act which we passed and its impact on the economy and employment in the third quarter, which was the first quarter in 8 that we had grown the GDP. As the gentleman knows, that was not the case in 2008, of course. CBO estimates that because of the Recovery Act, 600,000 to 1.6 million jobs, more Americans had jobs as a result of the Recovery Act. The GDP, according to CBO, was 1.2 percent to 3.2 percent higher than it would have been if we had not passed the Recovery Act. And the unemployment rate was nine-tenths of a point lower than it would have been.

Mark Zandi, the chief economist of Moody's Economy.com recently said the stimulus is doing what it was supposed to do. It is contributing to ending the recession. In my view, without the stimulus, the GDP would still be in the negative as opposed to positive. Unemployment would be above 11 percent, and there are a little over 1.1 million more jobs out there as of October than there would have been without the stimulus.

Having said that, you and I both agree not enough has been done. Notwithstanding the fact, essentially, there has been, with 2-months' exception with a little glitch-up, a straight-line decline in the number of loss of jobs per month from the high of the last month of the last administration of 747,000 lost. As you know, it's less than 190,000 lost. We don't have the report on Friday, but it's less than that, I think, which is progress, but it's not success. Success will be when we start gaining jobs.

In that context, I tell my friend that we are in fact looking at ways and means to spur greater job creation, allow small businesses to expand, get additional credit, as well as continuing to assist those who have lost their jobs and are in need of assistance. But I cannot, at this point in time, give you the specifics.

You have correctly observed the administration, because of its concern about job creation, is having a summit or a forum today to seek advice from experts on the economy, experts in the business field, and we certainly are going to look to them as well, talking to them. I want to also say to my friend that I would be more than pleased to receive from you and Members on your side of the aisle suggestions that you might have to accomplish a greater growth of jobs in our economy. I yield back.

Will my friend yield?

I thank the gentleman for yielding. Let me start at the beginning of his statement, that I might facetiously say was written by Lewis Carroll, who wrote Alice in Wonderland, of course, when he says that I characterized the stimulus package, which I did not; I have characterized the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which the CBO said gained us 600,000 to 1.4 million jobs.

The gentleman likes to do this. He has done it a number of times. He says, ``Finally we're talking about jobs.'' As a matter of fact, in February we passed legislation--with no help, frankly, from your side-- which, in fact, CBO says has created up to 1.4 million new jobs in America. In addition, we believe we've saved a lot of jobs in America as well. We are not where we want to be.

The gentleman also indicates--and I would agree--that both sides of the aisle have dug the hole deeper on the deficit. I say with all respect to my friend, we had an administration that was in office for 8 years, the Clinton administration. I would remind my friend--I am sure he is familiar with these statistics--that he inherited a $292 billion deficit from George Bush I. He reduced that deficit that year; the next year he reduced it further; the third year he reduced it even further; the fourth year he reduced it even further; and the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth years, the Clinton administration economic program took us into surplus--the only administration in your lifetime, and I am much older than you are--the only administration in my lifetime that had 4 years of surplus, and the only administration in my lifetime that ended their 8 years with a net surplus.

So I would disagree with my friend that we contributed. In fact, your administration under Mr. Bush inherited a $5.6 trillion surplus. Who said so? President Bush said so in 2001. We dissipated that into a $10 trillion deficit--arguably the largest turnaround of any nation in the world, certainly in terms of dollars. I'm not sure on percentage. Some countries, third-world countries, have pretty bad experiences. But to turn around a $5.6 trillion surplus by $15 trillion and turn it into a $10 trillion deficit and the worst economy we've seen in three-quarters of a century under the economic program that was pursued by your side of the aisle, very frankly I'm not going to take responsibility for that, I tell my friend with all due respect.

This administration was confronted with the worst economic situation of any administration since Franklin Roosevelt. We have been trying with, I think, real focus, and in some respects real courage, because some of the things we did were very tough. You, I think, joined us when we responded to your administration, the Bush administration, and said through Secretary Paulson and Mr. Bernanke, the country is in crisis, and if we do not act and act decisively, we may go into a depression.

You will recall that my side of the aisle responded to the Republican President, the chief executive of our

country, who said we were in crisis, and we responded, and 142 of us voted on a bill that nobody wanted to vote for in order to preclude us going into crisis. Your party, unfortunately, did not support your President, as you recall, in a majority sense on that particular vote in September of 2008.

Luckily, we came back. We had a failure; luckily we came back. Notwithstanding the unpopularity of that bill, we did contribute to stabilizing this economy. It was a tough vote. Americans are angry about it; we're angry about it. Bailing out people who were extraordinarily fiscally irresponsible--those same people that we want to regulate next week to make sure they are not subject to the regulatory neglect that they were subjected to for 8 years when the administration's policy was to simply get out of the way, not to regulate, not to oversee, and we saw an extraordinary financial meltdown.

So I will tell my friend with all due respect, I do not accept his premise that we haven't been talking about jobs. I have not read the reports to which he referred, but I do not accept his premise that in fact making sure that these big financial institutions operate in a way that minimizes risk--not just to them; they can afford the risk. They sock away money somewhere; the people who couldn't afford the risk who saw their 401(k)s go into the tank, saw their retirement put at risk.

So I tell my friend that next week, we are going to adopt legislation hopefully that will try to ensure that America does not go down that road again. Just as Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s responded with regulation to ensure that the stock market excesses and betting, on which people lost, did not reoccur and very frankly has kept us pretty stable. But, unfortunately, a lot of the regulatory neglect--which I want to make clear was not only in the Bush administration; there was some in the previous administration--we ought to have learned our lesson. I would hope you would join with us in adopting this regulatory reform package which will protect consumers and ensure responsible behavior on behalf of those whom we entrust with large parts of our national wealth and the health of our economy.

That's correct.

Who mentioned that? Do you have any other windmills that you want to tilt at?

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

We got off your premise pretty quickly--to another bill that's in the Senate--my view is because we did create jobs, CBO says we created jobs, and for the gentleman to say the economy is not in better shape today than it was when we took over from the last administration, I would remind the gentleman, 747,000 jobs were lost in the last month of the Bush administration; 3.8 million jobs were lost in the last year of the Bush administration as opposed to the last year of the Clinton administration, comparing the last two administrations, 1.9 million jobs were added.

I suggest to the gentleman what we see on this regulatory reform bill is exactly the philosophy that was brought under the Bush administration. If we simply get out of the way, don't bother anybody, just get out of the way, Government, take the referees off the field and all the players will play fairly, my experience in life has not been that. My experience in life is when you get the referees off the field, somebody leaves the line about a second before the ball is hiked, and people lose. And that is what happened. The SEC didn't regulate, the FDIC didn't regulate the way it should have, the administration didn't regulate the way it should have. And what went wrong? The financial community went amok.

Mr. Greenspan came before the Congress of the United States and said, I made a mistake. I thought people would act consistent with a fair evaluation of the risk they were willing to take. And Mr. Greenspan said, I was wrong. In fact, they did not. And they incurred risk. And who paid the price? All of us paid the price. All of us as taxpayers paid the price at Secretary Paulson's request, Republican Secretary of the Treasury, to try to sustain this economy not going into a depression.

So I disagree with my friend that I haven't addressed the issue of jobs. We have. I disagree with the gentleman when he says 1.4 million jobs. Well, we're still losing jobs. We are. But we're losing--and none of the statistics, by the way, that I have intoned this afternoon has the gentleman rejected as being accurate: 747,000 jobs lost during the last month of the Bush administration. Less than 190,000 this month.

Is that where we want to be? Of course it's not. We want to create 190,000. We want to create 500,000 jobs. We want to get people back to work. But the first thing we had to do was to reverse the extraordinary decline that we inherited in January of this year. I think we've done that.

I will tell my friend that when those who open up their retirement funds that are invested in mutual funds or something else and find that their retirement funds are up 57 percent from the low point shortly after this administration took office, they're going to think that's progress. Is it where they want to be? No. They want to be back at a hundred percent of where they were. They're not there yet. We need to keep working, and that's why we're considering a jobs bill before we leave here. If we can put one together, hopefully in a bipartisan fashion, we will do so.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 10:30 a.m. on Monday next for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, our Capital City is mourning the death of one of its leading citizens, a man I was proud to call my friend: Abe Pollin. Our thoughts and sympathy are with his wife, Irene, and his sons, Robert and Jim.

Abe Pollin's business skill, his philanthropy, and his civic spirit changed Washington, D.C., for the better; and, indeed, his legacy extends far beyond this city. It is a legacy that will long outlive Abe Pollin himself, but I rise today to honor the man behind it.

Abe was the sun of a Russian immigrant who came to this country speaking no English, and he rose to become one of this city's most successful developers.

He was a boy whose fondest memories were of paying 25 cents to sit in the bleachers at Washington Senators games. And even when he had brought basketball and hockey teams to Washington, he kept his childhood passion for sports.

The same work ethic that sent him to local railroad yards at 4 in the morning to buy supplies for his father's contracting business helped make him a fortune building housing for thousands. For some that would have been enough, but for Abe it was only the beginning.

Like his father, Morris, whose generosity earned him the nickname ``Charity'' in the Washington Jewish community, Abe Pollin has a proud place in the great American and Jewish traditions of philanthropy. There are thousands and thousands who owe him thanks, whether or not they knew him firsthand. They are sons and daughters of 9/11 victims whose education Abe helped pay for, D.C. families who live in affordable housing that Abe built.

Speaking in 1997 of the arena that was the centerpiece of Washington's downtown rebirth, Abe said this:

``I walk through that building and I get tears in my eyes. I've got everything I've ever done in my life on the line.''

It was his money that paid to build that arena.

``My advisers think I'm nuts. But I wanted to do something special for my town.''

Indeed, Abe Pollin's life was something special for this town, for sports

not only in this town but in America, and for his country.

I thank the distinguished chairman for yielding, and I rise in strong support of this legislation. I want to say to my friend who has just spoken, the ranking member of the committee who chaired the committee, who said they wanted to pay for things, what this bill does is put statutory PAYGO into law. He's right. But what he didn't say to you is when their side controlled the Presidency, the House, and the Senate, they jettisoned paying for things. They did away with statutory PAYGO, they did away with PAYGO generally, and what happened? We went from substantial surpluses under the Clinton administration to substantial deficits under the Bush administration.

Now we were told those substantial deficits and deficits that were being created would create economic growth in our country. In point of fact, however, after 8 years of that economic policy where they jettisoned PAYGO, a PAYGO which provided $5.6 trillion of surplus available in March 2001, according to President Bush; but they abandoned PAYGO, which is in this bill.

This is not a question of payoff to anybody. This was in the President's budget when he sent it down here earlier this year. It was in our budget that passed the House and the Senate. We said we were going to do this. Why? Because it's the right thing to do. Today, we have the chance to vote for health care our seniors can count on and a fiscal future for all Americans that they can have faith in.

Very frankly, my friend also said, We on the Republican side want to fix this. My question is simply: Why didn't you? Why do we still have this issue that confronts us year after year after year because we didn't have the courage to face it? I'm going to talk about the deficit, because this adds to the deficit. I will lament that, but there is not an option, as you added to the deficit every time you fixed it one year at a time. Doctors couldn't rely on it. More importantly, seniors couldn't rely on the fact that their doctors wouldn't have a big cut and push them out. I'm going to talk about that as well. We can do it by stopping a massive Medicare payment cut and by committing future policies to the tested principle of pay-as-you-go.

Now my friends on the other side of the aisle don't like pay-as-you- go because it constrained them in cutting revenues over a trillion dollars, which is one of the reasons we have such a large deficit, because they didn't pay for what they bought. Interestingly enough, my friends, they bought at a rate twice the growth in spending that occurred during the 1990s, in the 2000s, which was about 3\1/2\ percent per year. It was 7 percent a year when my friends on the other side of the aisle controlled all of the levers of power. So they decreased revenue and increased spending, and we had large deficits and the biggest recession we have faced since the 1930s were inherited by this administration and, frankly, by this Congress.

Now going back to the pay-as-you-go. First, the Medicare payment rate cut, if we do nothing, payments to doctors treating Medicare patients will drop by 21 percent in the new year with more cuts in the years to come. If we allow that to take place, many seniors will find their doctors no longer available to treat them.

So this is not only about compensating doctors for the services that are vitally important and we want them to give, but it is also protecting seniors' access to doctors. That will mean less access to health care, longer waiting lists, and serious conditions going untreated and.

In sum, if we do not act on this bill, it will mean sicker seniors. That's why it's essential that we stop these cuts before they're allowed to take effect. The cuts, of course, will occur on January 1 of this year, approximately 1 month from today.

It is important to remember that this bill would simply prevent cuts, not increase payments to doctors. But it is true that ensuring our seniors' access to their doctors will add to our deficit, just as extending any of the Bush tax cuts that are set to expire next year would do. Because seniors' health is at stake in this bill, I believe that stopping these payment cuts is worth the cost.

It's also worth pointing out that this bill represents a new honesty in budgeting. As far as Democrats are concerned, the days of pretending that the costs of the ``doctor fix'' will be made up by even deeper cuts next year are over. That, of course, is a policy we followed in the first 8 years of this decade. We pretended that somehow we'd

fix it later, and we never did. Indeed, most of the costs associated with this bill are the result of stopping the gimmicks that were used for years and cleaning up the mess created by those gimmicks. The first step to getting out of debt is being honest about the debt we're in. It is too deep, it is dangerous, and we need to address it.

So let's be honest. Our country is in a deep fiscal hole for reasons that go far beyond Medicare payments. In fact, there's no one reason for our record national debt. It's bipartisan in nature, not exclusively Republican or Democrat.

The causes include the previous administration's debt financed tax cuts, which I've spoken of, for America's essentially wealthier citizens who got most of the tax cuts; the cost of two wars, which we did not pay for; our escalating entitlements programs, which all of us have supported; the recession that we have confronted and that started in the seventh year of the previous administration's term; and the deficit spending--and we need to clean up that economic mess; spending that economists tell us is necessary to stimulate demand and recession.

In other words, we needed to spend the money to preclude a depression, not just a deep recession that we're in, and almost every economist, including Marty Feldstein, said that that was necessary.

A recent New York Times analysis tells us that 90 percent of our deficit has been brought about by the policies of the previous administration and the extension of its policies and the economic crisis that it left behind.

No one step will get us out of our fiscal hole, but the most important immediate step we can take is to commit ourselves to the principle that in new policies of our country, we will pay for what we buy. That is the principle of pay-as-you-go, or PAYGO, which was in place in the 1990s as we went from deep debt into surplus and that $5.6 trillion surplus that President Bush inherited in 2001. In the 1990s, President Clinton used it to turn huge deficits into a record surplus, and when President Bush abandoned PAYGO, and my friends on the other side of the aisle abandoned PAYGO, record deficits returned.

When Democrats took back the House majority in 2006, we demonstrated our commitment to fiscal responsibility by making PAYGO a part of the House rules. It's sometimes been difficult. And now with the support from President Obama and both Chambers of Congress, we have a real chance to give PAYGO the force of law by passing this bill. Under PAYGO, Congress will be forced to offset all new policies reducing revenues or expanding entitlements, so that they add nothing to our deficit.

In essence, we will be forced to make the hard budgeting choices that are so tempting to avoid. We are avoiding them today. We ought to admit that very honestly. Why are we doing it? Because as a practical matter, in the deep recession that we're in, we cannot pay for it without depressing the economy further.

That is not an acceptable alternative. If we want to cut taxes, we'll have to explain which programs will suffer cuts. If we want to expand entitlements, we'll have to spell out how we are going to pay for it. And no matter which party is in power, we'll be forced to distinguish wasteful spending and subsidies from the long-term priorities that really matter to our country.

Some have explained that statutory PAYGO would not apply to extensions of some existing policies that have bipartisan support, one of which is the one we're talking about today. Policies on the alternative minimum tax, which we've already done. And by the way, I am one of those--wasn't in the majority--who voted against extending the alternative minimum tax if we did not pay for it. In addition to that, Medicare doctor payments, which we're talking about today, and the estate and middle-income tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003.

I sympathize with their concerns. They are not specious concerns. I have said repeatedly that I would fight to pay for all of these policies. Hear me, if the Senate sends this back paid for, I will support it. I challenge all of you on that side of the aisle and all of you on this side of the aisle to do the same. That stands in contrast, frankly, to the first 8 years of this decade, when repeatedly it was stated that they do not believe that extensions of tax cuts need to be paid for.

Unfortunately, it's a political reality that the votes to pay for extensions of the Bush policies are most likely not there. A PAYGO law that ignored that fact would be waived for those policies and then again and again. I prefer a law that we can enforce consistently. And very frankly, that is supported by some of the most consistent voters for fiscal responsibility on this floor.

Mr. Speaker, in our country's economic meltdown last year, we all saw the damage that deep debt can do. It's time for our Federal Government to learn that lesson and act on it. If we fail to act, liberal and conservative, Democratic and Republican, priorities will suffer alike. We can still prevent that outcome, ladies and gentlemen of this House. We cannot get back to fiscal health in one afternoon's vote, and we will not, perhaps not in this President's term or the next, but we must start. We must take a step toward that end.

This bill does that. It supports not only ensuring our seniors access to quality medical services but also ensures that we, again, adopt the policy that brought us $5.6 trillion in surplus.

Parliamentary Inquiry

I thank the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Gordon), who does such an extraordinary job of leading the committee. I thank Mr. Smith for his leadership. I also want to thank David Wu, the chairman of the subcommittee, for his leadership. All of them have joined together to get this bill to the floor. And I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge their contribution, because this bill, the genesis of it, was really with Mr. Pascrell of New Jersey, who worked so many years ago to work with the Senate in generating this idea so that it came back to the House, but he was the godfather, if you will, of this piece of legislation. I want to acknowledge his presence here and thank him for his leadership. And I certainly want to thank Mr. Mitchell, Congressman Mitchell, who has been so critical in getting this bill to this point in time. He is an extraordinarily able Member of the Congress, and the firefighters throughout our country I know are appreciative of his efforts on this bill.

Every day, Mr. Chairman, we and our families live under the blanket of protection provided by America's firefighters, both career and volunteer, men and women who are willing to risk their lives to safeguard us, our loved ones, and our property. We may not often think about those sacrifices but every firefighter does.

Last year, more than 100 of them died in the line of duty, and tens of thousands more sustained injuries. To honor those sacrifices and to make our communities safer places to live, Congress has worked to become a partner with the fire departments across the Nation. Today we can reaffirm that commitment by reauthorizing two successful grant programs for firefighters: FIRE and SAFER.

I also want to mention a former fire chief from Pennsylvania who was also critically important in working on this legislation. He's no longer a Member of this body, Curt Weldon, a Member of the other side of the aisle. He and I cochaired the Fire Service Caucus for over 15 years. His leadership was critical in moving us towards the partnership of which I have just spoken between the Congress and the emergency responders throughout our country, career and volunteer.

This bill reauthorizes both programs through fiscal year 2014, pledging a total of $2.2 billion per year to our firefighters. The FIRE grant program authorizes $1 billion per year for state-of-the-art fire equipment, up-to-date training, and fire prevention programs. These competitive grants will benefit career, volunteer, and combination fire departments throughout the country. I know the chairman and subcommittee Chair have already spoken of what it will do, but I wanted to add as well State training academies and volunteer EMS departments, so critical to our emergency response strategies and team.

The SAFER grant program ensures that our community firehouses never have to sit empty: Its $1.2 billion per year will ensure 24-hour staffing at eligible departments so that there are always firefighters on duty in case of emergency. In fact, of course, it is the firefighters and emergency medical response teams that are usually the first on the scene at almost any disaster. It is therefore critical that they be available during a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week schedule. It also commits money each year to help volunteer departments recruit and retain new members.

Since FIRE's inception in 2000 and SAFER's in 2004, these programs have won support from Democrats and Republicans alike. This is truly a bipartisan effort on behalf of our communities. Our respect for firefighters and our commitment to get them the tools and training they need has transcended party lines, as it should have, and I hope today it will be no different and I know it will be no different.

I want to commend my colleagues Harry Mitchell and Bill Pascrell, as I said, the father of the FIRE grants program, for their leadership on this issue, as well as Chairman Gordon and Chairman Wu and my fellow Fire Caucus co-Chairs Peter King, Rob Andrews, and Jo Ann Emerson.

I urge all of my colleagues to vote to reauthorize these grants and carry forward this successful and vital partnership.

I thank my friend, Mr. Ackerman, for yielding, and I thank the ranking member, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, for bringing this resolution to the floor.

Next week, as has been said, President Obama will be hosting the first State dinner of his administration, and the guest of honor, appropriately, will be the Prime Minister of the Republic of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh.

Prime Minister Singh visits America at a time when the relationship between our two nations is as strong as it has ever been. In India we see a vital partner on issues of national security to world trade. We see a nation that confronts many of the threats that challenge America, from terrorism to global warming. We see an emerging economic power with a growing middle class. And though our nations are separated by distance, language, and culture, we recognize in one another the democratic values we share; and of course we have a language in common as well, as well as common values, despite its great size and diversity.

And for those who may not know, India will soon be not only the largest democracy, but the most populous nation in the world.

India has remained a democracy since its independence more than 60 years ago. And this year, Prime Minister Singh was returned to power in the world's largest democratic election. In fact, India made him the first Prime Minister since Nehru to return to office after completing a full term, a truly remarkable accomplishment.

All of us should be proud, and I know we are, to host the leader of one of America's most vital allies. On behalf of the House of Representatives, Speaker Pelosi, and all of us on both sides of the aisle, and Mr. Boehner, I am pleased to have this opportunity to welcome Prime Minister Singh to the United States and rise in strong support of this resolution.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Mrs. Elaine Armstrong Vall-Spinosa Cochran Dunkle for her inspiring leadership and devoted service to both her community and country. For the past 54 years she has applied her considerable skill to promoting civil discourse and civic engagement across both state and party lines. She has served, and continues to serve, as a bastion of inspiration for those who adhere to the principle that democracy is not an idle state, but a work in progress that expects our involvement should it seek to endure.

On May 14, 1915, Elaine was born into a society that did not permit women to vote. Five years later, Congress ratified the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote under the U.S. Constitution. Elaine can recall her father giving her mother instructions on how the voting process worked. It was a memory she carried with her when, at age 21, Elaine cast her first ballot for Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1936 Presidential election.

After college, Elaine became a history teacher, and it was at the helm of a classroom that she first experienced a deep connection with politics. She felt a tremendous sense of responsibility to the children she taught, and to honor that, took the time to educate herself and them on the great issues of their day, such as Roosevelt's ``New Deal'' and the Marshal Plan. She left teaching, however, to raise her own family and it was shortly thereafter that Elaine was invited to a life- changing meeting of Virginia's League of Women Voters.

Rising the ranks within Virginia's delegation, Elaine soon found herself guiding the League in an attempt to prevent Congress from dismantling price controls in the midst of the Great Depression. Believing that price controls were crucial to keeping household staples affordable for the average Depression-stricken family, she led a motorcade with League representatives from all 48 states to the Capitol. Together, they succeeded in convincing Congress to delay the dismantling of those controls.

Years later, Elaine was still active within the League of Women Voters. Now residing in Maryland, she played a vital role in a countless number of the League's Calvert County endeavors. As President of the Calvert County unit, she oversaw a number of initiatives aimed to increase public awareness of political issues. These included the hugely popular ``Know Who's in Charge'' pamphlet and the Calvert County Voter's Guide. One of her reigning achievements was her League's invaluable role in building the Chesapeake Bay Coalition--a union of five states joined in the fight to preserve and protect America's largest estuary. With the use of independently-funded studies, Elaine and her League members poured endless hours into persuading policymakers that it was the right action to take for our country. They succeeded.

Madam Speaker, Thomas Jefferson once wrote that ``we in America do not have government by the majority--we have government by the majority of those who participate.'' Elaine Cochran Dunkle has spent her life participating and as a consequence has left a lasting mark on our country. I extend my sincerest thanks for her tireless commitment to our nation and for all the many accomplishments that commitment has engendered.

Ladies and gentlemen of the House, this is obviously an historic

rule. There were some of us who were for it and some of us who were against it, but I know that all of us, all 434 of his colleagues, are honored to serve with the longest-serving Member of this House, who has committed himself to health care throughout his life, as did his father. We honor him for the service he has given to our country.

Ladies and gentlemen, let us stand in honor of John Dingell.

I thank Mr. Waxman for yielding.

Our rule was chaired by John Dingell, himself a historic figure on a historic day.

I want to congratulate all of those who have participated in the accomplishment of the product that we consider this day: Mr. Waxman, one of our senior Members in the House; Mr. Rangel, one of our senior Members in the House; and Mr. Miller.

I want to thank too the Republicans who engaged in this discussion, in this debate, because it is historic, and all of us who sit in this Chamber know that it will have a great effect on our people. Some perceive that effect as not positive. More, I believe, think it is positive. In any event, none of us believe that it is not extraordinarily important.

Soon each one of us is going to look into his or her conscience and vote on this bill. And when the time comes, I don't know if any words of mine will sway any of you. But I know that the most powerful arguments for the bill won't be spoken on this floor. They are being lived right now in our country in every one of our districts, in every one of our towns and counties and municipalities.

In the anxiety of the family that finds itself paying more and more each year for health insurance that grows weaker and weaker.

In the frustration of the small business owner weighing the choices of dropping her employees' coverage against the threat of being driven out of business by her competitors.

And in the fury of the patient who learns that an insurance company bureaucrat has deemed him too sick for the coverage he paid for.

They are our families, our neighbors, our fellow citizens. They are waiting for health insurance reform that is more affordable, more secure, more just. Their stories will be with me and I know with each of us when we cast our vote.

Because I want to say to every American facing down illness: never again, never again will you be denied coverage because you have diabetes or asthma or some other disease or because you're pregnant or because you have anything else your insurer decides is a preexisting condition. Never again will your coverage run out. Nor will you find the coverage you thought you had paid for was actually not there at all. And never again can insurance companies drive out competition and set premiums as high as they like, because there will be a public insurance option and a transparent marketplace to keep them honest, to keep them competitive, to bring prices down.

I want to say to our middle class families, the backbone of our country: you will have coverage that you can depend upon. Even if you change your job or lose your job or decide to start a business, you will be able to find affordable coverage in a competitive marketplace, an insurance exchange that offers you a choice of good policies at fair rates. In fact, according to an MIT analysis, buying coverage on the exchange will bring your premiums down by a great deal, even without the affordability credits.

If your family makes $90,000 or more, you'll save more than 1,200 bucks. If your family makes $60,000, you'll save more than $5,000. And if your family is making $38,000, you'll save more than $9,000. That's the kind of tax cut that America needs to secure its medical future.

I want to say to our seniors: you can count on Medicare, on a Federal program, for dignity and peace of mind in your golden years. And that will not change. Today we will vote to protect your access to your doctor, to encourage Medicare physicians to cooperate on higher quality care, to keep your Medicare solvent for longer, and to bring an end to the doughnut hole that leaves prescription drugs unaffordable for so many.

I want to say to our small businessmen and women: I know your premiums keep going up and that each year they make it harder to stay in business, to compete with Big Business and with foreign firms. You deserve a fair playing field; and in the insurance exchange marketplace, you'll be able to buy coverage at the low group rates you're now being denied.

I want to say to the 35 million Americans without insurance, who are forced to skip checkups and preventative care, who are forced to turn to the ER as the first and only line of defense, who live sicker and shorter lives: you will have what every man, woman, and child has in every other industrialized country in the world: health coverage you can afford and that you can count on.

And every American who is rightly worried about our mounting deficits and debt, I can tell you this: this bill does not add to the deficit over the next 10 years or the 10 years thereafter. This bill means health care that is more fiscally sustainable for years to come.

That is what this bill, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, can achieve for our country and for our people. It isn't a simple bill. It isn't a perfect bill, but it is the product of months and months of careful debate, sometimes animated debate, yes, even angry debate, careful scrutiny, hard work, and citizen input. And it's the right response to this time of economic insecurity in which we have been called to lead.

If we miss this chance, or if we vote for a Republican plan that does very little to expand coverage, weakens insurance, frankly, for millions who have it, and continues to allow millions of Americans to be denied affordable coverage, we'll find ourselves back here again.

But by then, premiums will eat up even more of our families' budgets; health care will consume even more of our economy; and even more Americans will have died for the lack of health care.

If we miss this chance, if we miss this challenge of nearly a century's duration, when Teddy Roosevelt, one of the great Presidents of this country, a Republican President of this country, said a hundred years ago we need to have health care coverage for all Americans--this is not a new idea, but it is

an idea whose time has surely come--the years between this chance and our next one will be filled with stories that are unworthy of America at its best.

Stories like Linda's, who wrote to The New York Times of the anguish she felt suffering from abdominal cancer and standing in the hospital just feet away from the drugs that could help save her life, drugs her insurance company was denying her.

Stories like Deamonte Driver's from Prince George's County, just a few miles down the road, who died at the age of 12 from a toothache, a toothache that was not treated by a dentist; and, as a result, it became infected. That infection went into his brain. He was in the hospital for 30 days at a cost of $250,000. Why? Because he didn't have $80 to get that tooth filled.

This bill will change that. We can be better than that. America is better than that. We must be.

Americans rightly want to know what's in this bill for them and for their families, but there's also something important in this bill for us as a people: a system worthy of the values we profess and the principles we hold dear. We will vote for a healthier America. We will vote to give our fellow citizens a greater sense of security. We will vote to make Medicare stronger for our seniors. We will vote for a healthier economy, for affordable coverage for individuals and small business. We will vote to begin containing costs, which will otherwise be unsustainable for our children and for our grandchildren.

We will, in sum, my colleagues, on this historic day, vote for a more perfect Union of which our Founders dreamed.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Braley).

I thank the gentleman for his comments.

My colleagues, I ask you to reject this amendment. Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle demanded 72 hours' notice for the bill and they've gotten 4 or 5 months' notice. They gave us 72 seconds to consider this amendment.

This amendment deals with some very complicated subjects; and it provides, of course, as we are not surprised that it would, for substantial billions of dollars back to the insurance companies. That's what their objective is. And, yes, they say something about equity of distribution of money. No study.

We set up a very careful study to make sure that the people's money is distributed to the States in an equitable, fair, effective fashion. That is why we ought to reject this amendment for which we received no notice, no consideration, no discussion in the public. The Republicans have been outraged about that.

I ask our party, I ask each one of us, to reject this motion to recommit and pass this bill.

I thank the gentleman from Washington, and I rise in support of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, a year ago this week Barack Obama was elected President in the midst of the greatest economic crisis in almost three-quarters of a century. Since his inauguration and the swearing in of the 111th Congress, we have been working hard to turn our economy around and put America and Americans back to work.

And whether we are Democrats or Republicans, there is reason for hope in the results we have seen in that time, because they mean growing economic security for the people we represent. We're not there, we need to keep working on it, but we've made progress.

Last month, we saw news that the American economy grew at a rate of 3.5 percent between July and September. That, Mr. Speaker, is the best growth in 2 years and a reversal of four quarters of decline. That's progress. It is not yet success.

According to Moody's, the Congressional Budget Office and the Council of Economic Advisors, the Recovery Act has saved or created about 1 million jobs. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities recently concluded that the Recovery Act kept 6 million Americans from falling into poverty and reduced the severity of poverty for 33 million Americans. It was the right thing to do. But we're not there yet. Facts like these have combined to convince unbiased observers that the recession the President inherited is over.

Yet that is not the whole picture. For millions of American families struggling with unemployment, the recession is not over. It's not over until their loved ones get back to work, until they have a job, until they can pay for the housing and the food and the clothing and the schooling their families need.

So we in Congress cannot consider the work of recovery done until those jobs are back. The truth is that long-term unemployment remains at its highest rate since we began measuring it in 1948. Over 33 percent of the total unemployed have been out of work for more than 26 weeks.

And because it's harder to get hired the longer you've been out of the workforce, long-term unemployment can become a vicious cycle. This bill lends a hand to nearly 2 million Americans whose unemployment insurance is set to run out by the end of the year. It extends their unemployment insurance by up to 14 weeks, and by a further 6 weeks in the States with the most difficult job markets. This means they will be able to survive; not thrive, but survive.

Who are those 2 million Americans and who will benefit? Many of them are middle-class Americans who lost their jobs without warning. According to a survey recently conducted at the Rutgers University, ``Six in 10 of those whose employer had let them go had no advance warning.'' What a wrenching experience that was, for them, for their spouses, for their children and, yes, for their entire extended families, as well as their communities.

Adding to the pain for many, nearly four in 10 said they had been employed by their company for more than 3 years and one in 10 more than a decade. These were people with stable jobs and commitments based upon those stable jobs, such as college payments and mortgages. People have found the ground falling out from under them through no fault of their own. We owe it to them, Mr. Speaker, and their families to help, and we owe it to our economic health as well.

The money provided by unemployment insurance quickly goes to necessities and boosts local economies. In fact, according to the CBO, every dollar we spend on unemployment insurance generates $1.61 in local economic activity, making this bill an investment that pays off for all of us, so we have a win-win situation here. We help people in very bad straits; and we help our economy and help us all. I am also glad that this bill is fiscally sound. It's fully paid for. It does not contribute to the deficit.

Though we have made progress since the depths of last winter and the depths of the recession inherited by President Obama and this Congress, there is, as I have said, clearly more work to do. We pledge to continue that work. We can take action today for those families for whom recovery is not yet a reality, and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.