Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of Mitch King, a government relations manager at the U.S. Postal Service, who, on May 1, is retiring after 36 years of work for the Postal Service, for Congress, and our Nation.

Mitch King began his postal career in 1973 as a letter carrier in Falls Church, Virginia, just a few miles from here, and then became supervisor of letter carriers before becoming an instructor in the delivery service branch of the Postal Management Academy in Potomac, Maryland.

In the spring of 1982, he began working in the government relations department at Postal Service headquarters in Washington, D.C. In 1992, he was promoted to the position of government relations manager, a postal career executive position equivalent to the executive branch's senior executive service. During the latter part of his career, he managed postal service congressional liaison activities for the States of Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and the District of Columbia. He also served on the Election Mail Task Force.

Mitch has managed government relations activities with many Members of Congress, addressing an ever-expanding variety of postal-related issues. He has also served as the principal postal contact for the House Appropriations Committee and the Financial Services Subcommittee. When I chaired the Treasury Postal Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, I dealt with Mitch on a regular basis.

Since that time, as whip and majority leader, I have continued to deal

with Mitch King and have found him very responsive, very knowledgable, and very conscientious. He was, in short, a model of an employee that the citizens of this country would want to have.

For years, Mitch worked with me to help ensure my constituents the level of service they have rightfully come to expect from the Postal Service. Indeed, he's done that for all of our Members. He was a true and dedicated public servant. He did his work well and faithfully for decades with no expectations of great rewards or renown. For 36 years, Mitch King helped keep the mail going. He was part of a collective accomplishment that is no less impressive for the fact that it happens 6 days a week.

The United States Postal Service handles millions and millions of pieces of mail a day. Does it make some mistakes? Yes. But an extraordinarily small percentage. In fact, it's the most productive mail service in the world. And 40 percent, frankly, ahead of number two.

At the same time, Mitch's humor, intelligence and consummate skill help make him entirely unique in many ways. I know I speak for all of us when I say he will be missed from public service. I am sure that he will go on to continue to contribute to his community, to his family, to his State, and to his country.

Good job, Mitch King. Godspeed.

Ladies and gentlemen of the House, today we come to the House floor in memory of a fine Member of this body who distinguished himself here, in my opinion, and left a lasting legacy.

Bill Orton, who our colleague, Jim Matheson, informed us passed away in an accident in Utah, who represented the people of Utah's Sixth District from 1991 to 1997, died last weekend at the age of 60.

Bill always was an independent thinker and serious-minded public servant. He was elected three times as a Democrat in one of America's most conservative districts, as our friend Jim Matheson has done, a fact that testifies both to his persuasive skills and the deep respect he earned even from those he didn't persuade.

As a local paper wrote, ``Utahans couldn't have done much better than electing Bill Orton.'' I agree with that sentiment, Mr. Speaker. In just three terms here, Bill left a permanent mark. He was a founder of the Blue Dog Coalition, which has stood up for fiscal discipline ever since and is well represented here tonight.

Bill was instrumental in creating the Democratic ideal of fiscal responsibility. And ever since, when Democrats have come to this floor to defend the government's essential programs while advocating for a balanced budget, they have been following in Bill's footsteps. Now, every time we speak out for a government that pays for what it buys, we have an opportunity to carry on Bill's work.

But as much as we will miss him, I know that his community and his family will miss him incomparably more. Bill became a father late in life, but his boys, Will and Wes, filled what turned out to be the last years of his life with so much joy. Those who know Bill remember, I'm sure, how he turned half of his congressional office into a nursery, or how he proudly brought baby Will to sit with him at hearings.

I know that nothing can make up for the loss of a father, particularly a father of young children. For Jacquelyn Orton, I know that nothing can make up for the loss of her husband. But I hope it will be some consolation--small, but some--to know that Bill was important to the life of his State and of his Nation, and that he shaped them for the better; that even though he had more to give, he gave much more than most ever do.

To his family, we extend great sympathy. From his country, to Bill Orton, we say thank you; thank you for serving so well the people of Utah and the people of the United States of America. God bless his family.

I thank the Chair, and I thank the chairman for yielding, and I rise with great respect for the quality of character and the quality of intellect that he brings to his job, one of the most important jobs we have in this Congress.

I also rise with great respect for the ranking member, Mr. Ryan. I like Mr. Ryan. I think Mr. Ryan is a very bright, able, conscientious, honest Representative.

By the way, as an aside I will tell the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg) who called our attention to page 30, page 30 is a blank page.

Mr. Ryan gave my quote. I believed that then and I believe it now. I believe we've pursued for too long policies of fiscal irresponsibility, a concept that we need not pay for what we bought. I believe it was called supply side economics, which to me meant that if you do less, you get more. Nothing I have done in my life instructs me that if I do less, I get more.

But because the gentleman used a quote of mine, I thought it might be nice to use a quote of his. May 4, 2003, the Journal Sentinel:

``Is the deficit a concern?'' This is a quote. ``Absolutely. But Congress should not constrain economic growth and keep people out of work to pay down the deficit. Coping with the deficit requires getting the economy growing at a more robust rate and getting people back to work. More people with jobs means more tax revenue being generated. This will help us pay down the deficit more quickly and address the financial challenges facing

Social Security and Medicare as the baby boom generation retires.'' My, my, my.

Mr. Ryan, you don't seem to feel that way now. The fact of the matter is the Obama administration handed us an inheritance.

Certainly.

You mean the deficit was lower.

Reclaiming my time, I am glad the gentleman went there.

The gentleman knows that under President Clinton we had a $5.6 trillion surplus projected. Not by Clinton, but by George Bush. When he took office in March of 2001, he said, ``I have inherited a $5.6 trillion surplus.'' And, indeed, in the year before the Bush administration came to office, I tell my friend from Wisconsin, we created in that last year 1.9 million new jobs.

Mr. Spratt spoke of the average 217,000 jobs per month. You need about 100,000 new jobs per month to stay even. Two hundred thirty thousand jobs per month were created, on average. Some months were a lot higher.

Two million new jobs in the last year of the Clinton administration. And what happened in the last year of the Bush administration? After 8 years of the economic policies that you pursued and for 6 years had total hegemony, total control, what happened? You heard the figures of unemployment, but you doubled the deficit from $5 trillion to $10 trillion--the debt, not the deficit. That was the result of your economic policy.

I heard the former chairman of the RSC--I was constrained to come to the floor, but my staff tied me down--who said, ladies and gentlemen, that we have been in office for 50 days and look what has happened to the country. Nobody in America thought that was a credible statement. Nobody.

The policies of the last 8 years have led to the worst economy that we have seen in this country in over a half a century. Some of us stood on this floor and said that is what would happen. We did it because we were fiscally irresponsible and because we were regulatorily negligent. We took the referees off the field. We pretended that the private sector would referee itself, that they would manage risk responsibly. They did not.

And the gentleman from Texas to whom I am referring said we didn't care about his children. That is not right. If he loses his job, we provided as our first bill that his children will have the availability of health care. But we want to provide his children, my children, my grandchildren, and, yes, my great granddaughter, with a fiscally sound Nation. It is not there now, and it will not be next year, and it won't be the year after, because the hole we have dug is so extraordinarily deep that it will take years and years of discipline to get us back to where we were on January 19, 2001. I think everybody in this House wants to do that, but we have different views of how you do that.

I have served in this House, as the gentleman has heard me say before, now 29 years. Eight of those years have been under a Democratic President, Bill Clinton; 20 of those years under Republicans. Every single year of a Republican Presidency since 1981 has run deep deficits, every one, without failure.

Now what is the significance of that, you might say? It is that a President alone can stop spending. The only one that can stop spending. I can vote against spending, my friend Mr. Ryan can vote against spending, but we need 217 other people to do the same. Only the President of the United States by vetoing spending can say ``no.'' President Bush signed bills and presided over an economy that resulted in the doubling of the national debt.

And so, my friends, we come to a responsible budget, but not the budget any of us would like. Why? Because, as they lament on the Republican side of the aisle, the deficits are too high. They are right. I agree with that. I don't like these deficits. I prefer to vote for balanced budgets. I voted for a balanced budget amendment. And, very frankly, had we had a balanced budget amendment, we would be in much better shape today, because you couldn't have enacted your tax cuts because you would have had to have paid for them.

Because you would have had to pay for them, and while you were very prepared to give the wealthiest in America big tax cuts, you were not prepared to pay for them, perhaps because of the logic that you expressed in that article of 2003.

My friends, we have an important decision to make. That decision is whether or not our investments in the future will continue by the adoption of this budget. We adopted, under the Bush administration, the Troubled Assets Relief Program. There was disagreement on that, not between Mr. Ryan and myself. We believed that was necessary. We didn't like it, too much money, too much debt and too much borrowing. But we thought it essential to bring this economy back and to stabilize it and to try to keep jobs. It hasn't yet succeeded. And we have lost far too many jobs. Too much pain in America, too many people without a job, too many families who aren't sure where their next meal is coming from or how they are going to pay their mortgage payment or how they are going to send their kids to school. There are too many Americans in pain.

Now we can, in my view, deeply cut those items which are there to help people in pain and trouble, as I believe your budget does. Or we can do what Mr. Spratt has recommended, bring the deficit down, not to where we would like it, but bring it down substantially, about 3.5 percent of the gross domestic product by 2015 as opposed to 10.5 now. Is that too high? It is. Would I like it lower? I would.

But I tell my friends that this is a responsible budget, not just for today but for the long term, because although we had a Recovery and Reinvestment Act, that was to staunch the decline, the fiscal crisis and the economic crisis and the job crisis and the health care crisis that we inherited from the Bush administration.

That is why I'm going to vote for this budget. That is why I urge each and every one of my colleagues to vote for this budget, because it invests in the health care of our people. It invests in the energy independence, and therefore the national security of our people. And yes, it provides for the national security. There are two wars that are going on. This budget provides that we will respond to them and keep our people safe. But it also responds to the need to keep people safe right here at home. That is why I will vote for this budget. That is why I urge each and every one of you to support this budget, not because it does what we would like it to do, as so many of my Republican colleagues have urged us, but those same colleagues indicated to me that their budgets would balance the budget and would cut spending.

Because there has been so much talk of spending on your side of the aisle, Mr. Ryan, I remind you that under the Clinton administration, discretionary spending rose at a rate of 3.5 percent. However, with you totally in control, it rose 7 percent. You doubled spending. So it rings hollow to say that it is spending we ought to cut. You cut taxes, and you increased spending.

This is a tough budget. It is tougher than a lot of people would like. It is tougher than Mr. Berman would like. Because he knows there are children all over this world that we are helping stay healthy, kept alive by feeding. And allies kept on our side when we confront terrorists. This is a tough budget. The Budget Committee made tough decisions, but they were right decisions, right for our country and right for our people.

Support the Spratt budget. Make America better.

Madam Chair, today, with the passage of this budget resolution, the House has the opportunity to set America's priorities for years to come and build a sustainable, widely shared recovery.

Along with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, this budget is a key part of our return to prosperity; it provides the long-term investments that will make prosperity last.

Today we have a chance to begin bringing down the cost of healthcare; breaking our addiction to foreign oil; creating the best-prepared workforce in the world; and returning America to fiscal health.

On healthcare, it is clear that rising costs are straining American families and crippling American businesses.

Family premiums have more than doubled since 2000, and over the past five years, our total healthcare spending has increased at more than twice the rate of inflation, consuming more of our economy and our budget each year.

This budget is the start of efforts to reverse that disastrous trend. It makes a significant down-payment on reform, taking steps to lower healthcare costs, improve quality, and expand access.

Healthcare reform is also key to entitlement reform, because we will never be able to control the growth in Medicare and Medicaid spending as long as healthcare costs continue to increase at more than twice the rate of inflation.

On energy, this budget increases support for energy independence programs by 18 percent. That includes incentives for the development of new technology and clean energy jobs; support for cutting-edge research; funding to start on an energy-efficient, money-saving national smart grid; and programs to help Government from the Federal to the local level save energy and money.

On education, this budget builds upon the investments made in President Obama's recovery plan with additional support for early childhood education, elementary and secondary school students, and efforts to help more Americans obtain a college degree.

It expands access to early childhood programs, makes college more affordable with increased Pell grants, and promotes job-training and significant education reform.

A lasting recovery isn't simply about ending the turmoil in our financial markets--it's about having workers who are prepared to compete in the 21st-century economy with anyone in the world.

Finally, this budget reverses the irresponsible Republican policies that turned record surpluses into record deficits and puts us back on a fiscally sustainable path.

That begins with an honest accounting of where we are--an assessment that takes into account the cost of two wars.

From that honest foundation, the budget cuts the deficit from 10.5 percent of GDP in 2009 to 3.5 percent of GDP in 2013. In other words, we cut the deficit by nearly two-thirds.

We do so by restraining spending, investing in oversight that saves taxpayer money, and, most importantly, reinstating the pay-as-you-go rule in law and requiring that new initiatives be paid for.

Our Government must pay for what it buys.

Republicans, by contrast, would abandon that discipline in favor of a $3.6 trillion tax cut, which the non-partisan tax policy center calls ``by far, the largest tax cut in history''--one that goes almost exclusively to the richest Americans.

Paying for tax breaks like those, as Mr. Ryan proposes to do, would require deep cuts to vital services. So taking the massive tax breaks to their logical conclusion, Republicans support cutting Medicare, Medicaid, and a host of other essential programs that are critical to our economic recovery.

As the Washington Post notes today, the Ryan substitute would ``freeze most Government spending for five years, halt spending approved in the economic stimulus package, and slash federal health programs for the poor and elderly.''

When Republicans claim their budget will create jobs, they conveniently ignore the impact that the deep spending cuts in their plan would have on jobs.

Virtually all economists, including conservatives such as Milton Friedman, agree that Government spending during a recession creates jobs.

In fact, when we use the model of the conservative Heritage Foundation and take into account both tax cuts and spending cuts, we find that the Republican plan destroys jobs.

Of course, Republicans have another option to finance their tax breaks--increasing our deficit and piling up our debt even higher. That would be in keeping with the fiscal ideology that has dominated among Republicans as long as I have served in this House, the dogma summed up by Vice President Cheney: ``Reagan proved deficits don't matter.''

Our country has come to see the foolishness of that belief--and I think it has also come to see that only one party has a track record of responsibly reducing deficits. Chairman Spratt put it well: ``Republicans turn surpluses into deficits. Democrats turn deficits into surpluses.''

The Republican case on substance is truly weak--and their argument on process is weaker.

Republicans have repeatedly decried this budget's use of the reconciliation process to provide for a majority, up-or-down vote on health care and education if Congress has not reached agreement on these issues so critical to our economic recovery.

But the truth is that both parties have used reconciliation to implement the policies assumed in budget resolutions.

Under President Bush, it was the Republican option of first resort to pass irresponsible tax cuts; under this budget, it is simply a fallback if partisanship blocks progress.

I urge my colleagues to vote for this budget--one of the most important votes they will take in this Congress.

This is our chance to build the foundation for recovery and plan wisely for the long term. We cannot miss it.

Madam Speaker, I rise to congratulate my constituent Rob von Gogh who today marks the end of his twenty-two years of service as an employee of the United States Government, including ten years of distinguished service to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Rob began serving the House of Representatives in 1998 as the Branch Manager and Graphic Artist within House Information Resources (HIR), preparing visual communications for Members of Congress. In 1999 he was promoted to HIR's Director of Client Services, where he managed the COA's centralized, non-partisan technology support team that provides infrastructure support for the entire House of Representatives and the more than 950 district offices across the country.

Rob was selected as the recipient of the 2006 Chief Administrative Officer's Excellence Award for his role managing the Client Services team. Rob has guided the House's technological infrastructure through periods of significant transition and strain. Within his role as manager of the Client Services team Rob has been involved in many milestones and business changing events of the House. They include the House's Y2K transition, the anthrax crisis and September 11th attacks, the House Mobile Computing Project, House Active Directory Project, CAO Seat Management for computers and the House Information Hosting Service.

Rob has served in a nonpartisan role as one of the senior problem solvers for House operations. Blending an artful balance of technical knowledge with compassion and a keen focus on delivering results, he instilled a sense of quality customer service with his teammates that earned him the reputation as a person who gets things done fast, right and always with a smile. Mr. von Gogh served the House and our country with distinction. On behalf of the entire House community, I'd like to extend a heartfelt thank you to Rob for his service and years of dedication to the United States House of Representatives.

Madam Speaker, I am proud to introduce this bill supporting Best Buddies, an organization dedicated to the social integration of children and adults with intellectual disabilities. Founded in 1989 by Anthony Kennedy Shriver, Best Buddies is the first social and recreational program of its kind in the United States; it has already reached hundreds of thousands of Americans, both with and without disabilities, a total that is set to reach half a million by 2010. Best Buddies fosters and supports friendships and mentorships between participants from kindergarteners to adult professionals, sponsoring more than one thousand volunteer-led chapters at schools and workplaces. Not only do volunteers gain valuable leadership training-- they learn first-hand about the important contributions made by their fellow-citizens with intellectual disabilities. And participants with disabilities learn that they are valuable members of our communities, capable of forming a wide range of real and lasting friendships.

This legislation authorizes a total of $10 million for grants, contracts, or cooperative agreements to be distributed to Best Buddies by the Department of Education in Fiscal Year 2010, along with such sums as may be necessary for each of the four succeeding fiscal years. These funds will enable this important organization to reach hundreds of thousands more potential volunteers and participants, promoting the crucial values of shared participation in community and social equality. I want to thank Congressman Blunt for co-sponsoring this bill, and I urge my colleagues to pass it as soon as possible.

Mr. Speaker, in 1966, I was elected to the Maryland State Senate. I was a few months out of Georgetown Law School. And elected at the same time was an extraordinary representative of our State. He was elected to the House of Delegates.

In 1970, he was elected to the Congress of the United States and served in the Congress until 1976. In 1976, the citizens of our State elected him to the United States Senate. Paul Sarbanes retired 2 years ago as the longest-serving member of the United States Senate in the history of our State.

His partner in all of those efforts was an extraordinary woman. Her name was Christine. She was born in England. She was an extraordinary individual. Paul Sarbanes was a great intellect. Christine matched his intellect. Paul Sarbanes was a person of extraordinary integrity, and his partner, Christine, matched that integrity.

Paul Sarbanes was a person of great depth and great compassion, mirrored by his wife, Christine.

Christine Sarbanes, the mother of our colleague, John Sarbanes, who represents the district that his father once represented. Christine Sarbanes passed away this weekend. Christine was a loving friend and partner to her husband for nearly half a century, and those of us who were active with her husband in the public sphere and got to know her well and got to be her friend were blessed by that relationship.

She took the partnership with Paul very seriously. From the days when she and Paul knocked on hundreds of doors each afternoon to get him elected to the House of Delegates to the days when she acted as Senator Sarbanes's most trusted adviser. Like her husband, Christine possessed, as I have said, tremendous political savvy, deep intelligence and a love of learning.

In fact, she once said that she and Paul bought their house because it was within walking distance of a library. No one was surprised at that criteria for purchasing a home.

Christine passed that love of learning to generations of students as a teacher of Latin, Greek, and French.

Her son reflects that deep intellect as he serves the constituents of the Third Congressional District of Maryland.

As a tireless worker for UNICEF, Christine served the international community. Among the many other charities she served, Christine took up the fight for children around the world.

So today, Mr. Speaker, we mourn the loss of an honored teacher, wise counselor, passionate advocate, and her family mourns the loss of an irreplaceable mother and wife.

I lost my wife Judy 12 years ago. So I know something of the pain that Senator Sarbanes is experiencing. He's one of my closest friends. We've been involved in politics for over four decades together, but I also know that love outlasts grief. As Oscar Wilde said, ``Where there is sorrow, there is sacred ground.''

As long as her loved ones live--her grandchildren will survive for a long period of time--their memories of the wife, their mother, their grandmother, will be sacred to them. Something of her will live on, on the sacred ground of memory, as long as those memories last.

I know that all the Members of this House in which Paul Sarbanes and Christine, although not elected, served so ably for 6 years, and the colleagues of his in the United States Senate who grew to know Christine as well as they knew Paul and respected her and loved her as they loved Paul, I know they share in his grief, in John Sarbanes's grief, in his brother's grief, and their grandchildren's grief.

So, Mr. Speaker, I know that the House joins me in expressing our deep regrets and that our prayers and sympathy are with the Sarbanes family, a family of immigrants, that came to this country and have made it better, like so many others. Paul Sarbanes still lives, still serves. Christine is gone, but her memory is not. We honor her this evening.

I thank the minority 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. On Tuesday the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning-hour debate and 12 p.m. legislative business. 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. A complete list of suspensions, as is the tradition, will be announced by the close of business tomorrow. In addition, we will consider Senate amendments to H.R. 146, the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 and H.R. 1404, the Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement Act.

The bill comes back, of course, it is a House bill being returned with amendments as the gentleman, I'm sure, knows, and under those circumstances, of course, we consider that there is not a motion to recommit on that kind of a procedure. So the answer there would be it would not be a motion to recommit. As the gentleman also knows, this bill came two votes short of a two-thirds majority with very significant Republican and Democratic support of the bill. This bill has been hanging around for a long period of time. It is composed largely, although not exclusively, of bills that have passed the House largely on suspension.

So the answer to the gentleman's question is we believe there has been demonstrated overwhelming support for the substance of this bill. It has been hanging around a long time. We want to see it get passed. And the answer is probably not.

Will my friend yield on that point?

As the gentleman, I'm sure, knows, many, many of the provisions, I don't know that I have the specific count, are Republican-sponsored bills in this, what the Senate packaged, as you know, so that a large percentage, I don't know exactly what the percentage is, whether it is 30 percent or 35 percent, are Republican- sponsored pieces of legislation.

It is possible. I wouldn't send out an expectation. It is being worked on. There is a strong feeling by the sponsors of the legislation, as you know, that passed in the last Congress through this House, handily, that I think in agreement with the administration that, in addition to the administration's Executive Order, legislation is necessary to give certainty to what can and cannot be done by researchers. And we obviously want to make sure that researchers understand what the law is, what the opportunities are, and what the prohibitions are so that legislation is possible. But I want to tell my friend that I did not announce it for next week. I don't expect legislation next week. I think it is possible for the week following, but I don't want to go beyond that. We will certainly let the gentleman know as soon as I know.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

My presumption is that you have now come up with a new phrase on your side of the aisle. I do know about cap-and-trade. It is talked about regularly. But maybe that is not as politically salient as ``cap-and- tax.'' It seems innovative. But if the gentleman, as I presume he is, is referring to what is commonly known by everybody else as ``cap-and- trade,'' let me say this: The Budget Committee obviously will mark up on the 25th, that is next Wednesday, we expect to bring the budget bill to the floor the following week, the last week before the Easter break. My expectation is there will be provisions in there for energy and global warming consideration. But my further expectation is it will not adopt a premise of one alternative over another, that that will be subject to the legislative process, and that one will not be chosen in the budget itself, so that voting on the budget would not be giving precedent to one alternative over another.

I yield back.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

First of all, the gentleman indicated that ``we have been told by the White House.'' I had some comments on how the Republican majority responded, from my perspective, without fail to

the Bush administration. We have discussions with our White House. We don't tell them. They don't tell us. We have discussions, positive discussions, on how we, together, can move this country forward.

Those discussions clearly have had reconciliation as a subject of discussions. But I will tell the gentleman that those decisions by the Budget Committee have not been made, nor have they been made by the chairman of the Budget Committee. But they clearly are part of the discussion. Reconciliation, as the gentleman knows, has been in our rules for a very long period of time. When the Republicans were in power, reconciliation was something that they used. They are in the process to facilitate the adoption of the budget and policies consistent with the budget; i.e., to reconcile the budget with the authorization and the policy with the budget that has been adopted. So I say to the gentleman that that is certainly under consideration, but no decision on that has been made.

I don't want to anticipate what the Budget Committee will do. The gentleman is referring to the placeholder that the administration suggested in the budget. They did so because they wanted to present a budget that did, in fact, anticipate possible costs. To that extent, it was probably one of the most honest budgets that we received, honest in the sense that it included the prospective costs. As you know, we have been somewhat critical in the past of costs that we knew were coming down the pike but which were not included. So the administration did that.

Now whether or not the Budget Committee itself decides to include those costs, I don't know. But I do know this, that there has been no decision on an additional TARP appropriation or authorization. Clearly, we are hopeful that we will stabilize the economy. We have moved forward in many respects on a bipartisan basis on this, certainly not in every respect.

We have done some tough things because we thought the crisis that confronted our country demanded action. We have all been very disappointed with some of the manifestations of that. And I think we are going to continue to look at this very carefully. The Financial Services Committee is marking up a bill this coming week, which I expect to have on the floor the following week, dealing with constraints on those who receive funds from the Federal Government, from the taxpayer, to shore up our economy, not to shore up those businesses, but to shore up the businesses as they relate to the impact their failure would have on the economy.

I think that the gentleman and I share a view that we certainly need to have knowledge, and we will have knowledge if the administration believes that it needs additional resources and that Congress will have that to consider. I would say that the environment for such a piece of legislation right now is not particularly good.

I think that is accurate.

That is my expectation, yes.

I thank the gentleman for his question. As you point out, on this side of the aisle we certainly have great concern for small businesses.

Although I don't want to be argumentative, the situation we find ourselves in was inherited. It was inherited from a previous administration that believed in a number of things, particularly the policies that you have offered to once again pursue, which we didn't think would work and, we think, frankly, have in some respects been a cause of the crisis that confronts this country.

Furthermore, we think that the administration's focus on deregulation and taking the regulators out of circulation was a significant cause. We also think that the failure of the Federal Reserve to enforce the 1994 law that was passed by the Congress and which was enforced by Chairman Bernanke in 2007 when he took office, which allowed the Federal Reserve the authority to oversee the subprime market, and the theory that Mr. Greenspan had that the market would regulate itself. In point of fact, we see from AIG that the market did not regulate itself. It went on a binge of irresponsibility and greed.

So I want to make it clear that while we are very concerned about small businesses, it is huge businesses that have put them in the trick bag. It was huge businesses that weren't overseen properly by the previous administration and need to be properly overseen by this administration.

Furthermore, let me say to my friend that the budget that the President has proposed eliminates the capital gains tax for individuals on the sale of certain small business stocks. It makes the research and experimentation tax credit permanent. Ninety-seven percent of small businesses will receive no tax increase in 2010. There is $28 billion in loan guarantees to expand credit availability for small businesses, and support for $1.1 billion in direct disaster loans for businesses, homeowners and renters.

Furthermore, the administration has, which you just saw them take action on, a small business lending initiative, not to the big banks, not to the

huge organizations, but to small businesses. It is focused on unlocking credit for small businesses. You and I have absolute agreement on that. We need to do that. You talk to your small businesses; all of us do.

I had a meeting with my Chamber of Commerce, and we probably had a hundred small businesses in the auditorium at that point in time. You are absolutely right, they are having real trouble getting credit. I talked to a county commissioner who has a small business in Calvert County. Normally he could go into his bank and get a loan on a handshake for $30,000 or $40,000 to expand his business. This time he was looking for $40,000. He has dealt with this bank for 35 years, and they said, I don't know whether they said Mr. Clark or Mr. Commissioner, but they said, yes, but fill out the form. And it took him 30 days. Now he got it, but he has done business with that small bank for that period of time. So we share that view.

By the end of the month, the Treasury Department will start making direct purchases of up to $15 billion in securities backed by SBA loans to get the credit market for small businesses moving again.

In addition, in the Recovery Act, we eliminated, as I am sure the gentleman knows, all SBA-backed fees on SBA-backed loans, again to try to facilitate small businesses getting credit.

And it raises from 85 to 90 percent the proportion of loans that the Small Business Administration will guarantee.

Lastly, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has endorsed these steps to unlock the credit markets for small businesses.

So we are very pleased at the definitive action that we have taken to further the interest you and I share of making sure that small businesses can make it in this extraordinarily bad time which we believe previous policies have caused and which we have inherited.

Mr. Speaker, before the gentleman yields back, I just want to make an observation.

I understand what the gentleman said, but the gentleman will recall, of course, that your party had a substitute that it offered that lost on a bipartisan vote, as you recall. So the gentleman did have the opportunity, his party had the opportunity, to offer a substitute which a significant number in his party did not agree with and certainly an overwhelming majority of our party did not agree with, in part because we perceived it as creating far fewer jobs. There is a difference of opinion on that, I understand that, but our perception was that it created about a third of the jobs or saved about a third of the jobs that our bill did.

But that aside, putting aside that disagreement on the figures, the fact is there is no disagreement that you had a substitute. You offered it, and it was defeated.

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.

I thank the chairman for yielding. I thank Mr. Platts for his leadership on this bill, and I thank Buck McKeon, the ranking Republican who leads this committee for his party. I want to say this is a perfect example of when we can work in a bipartisan way, we do work in a bipartisan way.

Mr. Chairman, in my view what has angered so many people about this recession is the perception that its causes are not simply material, not simply financial, but in many ways moral. Ask most Americans what got us to this point, and I doubt the first words they will reach for will be ``credit default swaps'' or ``troubled assets'' or ``overleveraging.'' They will turn, I think, to older ideas--greed, recklessness, self-dealing and profit-taking. In sum, they will think there is a moral deficiency.

It follows that our economy and our recovery will not be whole if it only encompasses renewed balance sheets or consumer demand. What is also required is a renewed public spirit. Government cannot create that spirit. We would be fools to think it could. But it can recognize it, applaud it and give avenues for its manifestation. We can coordinate it and give it productive outlets. That is exactly what this bill does.

I want to congratulate the President of the United States, Barack Obama, for his leadership, and Michelle Obama for working so avidly on behalf of public service and a renewed spirit of giving to our country. Our President has not just talked about that, he has lived a life of service. I said with Chairman Miller at a press conference just a few hours ago that Barack Obama graduated from one of the best law schools in this country. He was editor of the Law Review. He had one of the keenest minds in his class, indeed in the country. He could have made literally millions of dollars practicing law representing the most powerful interests of our country. He choose not to do that. He went to Chicago, his hometown, and he spent his time reaching out to those who needed help, those who didn't have power and those who did not have economic might, to assist them in making their lives better and their communities better.

That is what this bill does. So the principal spokesperson for this bill, President Obama, has lived it, not just talked it. We are blessed with a young generation remarkably committed to public service. This bill gives them the outlets and the opportunities to contribute to our recovery.

Mr. Chairman, I would also say there are a whole lot of seniors who have retired from their careers but don't want to retire from life, don't want to retire from their communities and don't want to retire from continuing to give service to their fellow men and women. This bill strengthens the bond between service and education by helping volunteers pay for college. It focuses volunteer efforts on our most pressing needs, including rebuilding our infrastructure and retooling our economy for clean energy and expands opportunity for volunteers of all ages, from middle schoolers to baby boomers.

In sum, this bill represents the greatest expansion in national service since the days of John F. Kennedy. He asked us to not ask what the country could do for us, but what we could do for our country. In fact, that is what our faiths ask us as well, for all of our faiths have a central theme: love God and love God's children as well. And we love God's children by giving them a hand up and helping to serve with them in making their lives better.

These new ranks of volunteers will be making tangible contributions that benefit all of us. According to House testimony from Time Magazines's managing editor, Richard Stengel, and I quote, 61 million Americans volunteered in their communities in 2007, giving more than 8 billion hours--that is billion--8 billion hours of community service worth more than $158 billion to America's communities.

In my community, we have volunteer fire companies in the southern part of my district. The cost of providing fire service in St. Mary's, Calvert and Charles Counties would be a lot higher if it weren't for the literally tens of thousands of hours volunteered by citizens who care about their communities and care about keeping us safe when fire occurs.

He continued:

``A cost-benefit analysis of AmeriCorps programs has concluded that every $1 that we invest in AmeriCorps results in $1.50 to $3.90 of direct measurable benefits to the community.''

Wouldn't it be wonderful if all of our businesses had been as successful? We wouldn't be in the pickle we are in.

Those are the material rewards of this bill. But, Mr. Chairman, I think we all know that the rewards we can't measure are far greater. They are the virtues of community and self-sacrifice, of responsibility and teamwork, of a better country and a better community. John Lewis talks about the beloved community. This bill seeks to serve the beloved community.

I urge its adoption. I thank Mr. Miller for his leadership, I thank the Speaker for her pressing us to consider this early, and I thank Mr. Platts and Mr. McKeon for their leadership and work on this bill as well.

Madam Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to Rev. Joseph C. Martin, a son of Maryland who devoted his life to helping tens of thousands of alcoholics overcome their addiction--an addiction he overcame himself. Father Martin drank heavily for more than a decade until, with the help of a treatment center for the clergy, he recovered his sobriety. Drawing on his personal struggle, Father Martin developed his famous ``Chalk Talk on Alcohol,'' a common-sense lecture on addiction that remains in heavy use to this day, from the U.S. Armed Forces to substance-abuse programs around the world.

Along with his hard-won lessons on sobriety, his most lasting legacy is Father Martin's Ashley, a treatment center overlooking the Chesapeake Bay in Harford County, Maryland. Father Martin's Ashley has kept its doors open for more than three decades and, with the guidance and leadership of its co-founder, has served more than 30,000 people. A giving, loving man who exemplified the best tenets of his faith and of the sobriety movement, Father Martin never turned away a potential patient who was short on funds. His example and his wise counsel enabled recovering alcoholics around the world to reclaim control of their lives.

Michael Deaver, who served as chief of staff to President Reagan and received treatment at Father Martin's Ashley, said: ``I had been with presidents, kings, popes, and prime ministers, but Father Martin was the most powerful person I had ever met. You see, Father has the power to change people, to make them better, to make them whole again.''

Though Father Martin is gone, I am sure that his legacy, his teaching, and his example will have that same power for years to come.

I thank the minority whip for yielding.

On Monday the House will meet at 12:20 p.m. for morning hour and 2:00 p.m. for legislative business. On Tuesday the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning hour and 12 p.m. for legislative business. On Wednesday and Thursday the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business. On Friday no votes are expected in the House, which is a change from the previously announced schedule.

We will consider several bills under suspension of rules. A complete list of suspension bills, as is the custom, will be announced by the close of business tomorrow. In addition, we will consider H.R. 1388, the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act, also known as the national service legislation.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

In fact, we are going to continue, as we have been doing for every week that we have been in session in this Congress, to focus on jobs, focus on job creation.

In fact, I would say to the gentleman, the three bills you mentioned, other than the Pi Day bill, were focused on jobs, focused on investing in our economy, in clean water, in education, in the safety of our public streets, keeping cops on the beat.

So I say to my friend, the answer to your question is, we are going to continue to focus on jobs during the next 3 weeks as well. We think we have been doing that.

We have had some disagreements on whether that was the way to do it, I understand that, but there is no doubt that we are going to continue to focus on jobs. One of those will be at some point in time before we leave for the Easter break. As the gentleman knows, it's our intention to bring up the budget as well.

One of the things I want to say in response to the gentleman's first question, in response to what he referred to as the cramdown, as the gentleman knows, there were three very important provisions which were not controversial, which is perhaps why I didn't mention them, notwithstanding the fact that many voted against the bill to help homeowners, to help those who were either at risk or may be at risk of losing their homes.

The bankruptcy provision was to try to facilitate, in league with the very substantial reform proposals proposed by the administration, which would be under Fannie Mae and the Treasury Department, and under Sheila Baird's aegis, trying to help homeowners. So that bill, we think, was a very important part of the comprehensive homeowners affordability plan announced by the administration.

With respect to helping small business, as the gentleman knows, we passed the Recovery and Reinvestment Act. As the gentleman also knows, notwithstanding the fact that that was not supported by any on your side of the aisle, it had very substantial tax cuts in there for exactly the people you are talking about. That is, small businesses.

So we think that, as you do, that small businesses are a vitally important part of creating jobs and creating economic opportunity in this country, and we have been supporting policies to assist them.

The gentleman and I were at the fiscal summit together, we went down to the health summit. We weren't in the same breakout group, but one of the things we are looking at, as you know, is trying to help small business with health care costs. That's a major challenge confronting the small business community.

Our friends at NFIB, as you know, have shared that interest. Now we haven't gotten to a specific proposal, so we will have to see what happens when we get there. We certainly share your concern, but we also believe we have been acting toward the end the gentleman suggests, and that is assisting small businesses to grow and to create jobs and to stay in business.

I presume the gentleman is referring to the job creators that we had in our bill.

As you know, we believe that the substitute that was offered to the recovery and reinvestment package that was defeated in a bipartisan way created--and there is a difference in this--our perception of this is 2 million less jobs than the bill that we offered and that was passed, which we think either created or saved 3.5 million jobs.

Having said that, you asked about an additional relief package. I note you quoted the newspapers as talking about Mr. Zandi, who was one of Mr. McCain's advisors during the course of the last campaign.

But I also noted in the paper that you are also quoted as saying, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor didn't rule out the idea of a second stimulus package and said Wednesday he would be willing to sit down with the White House and congressional Democrats to discuss any new emergency spending proposals.

I appreciate that offer, and I want to show the gentleman that when and if--and I have no reason to believe, by the way, that Mr. Obey is doing anything as reported in the paper that he might be doing, I have no reason to believe he is doing that--but I want you to know that in light of your interest in sitting down, that I share that interest, and we will do that.

I thank the gentleman.

First, in a very short response to your question, I do not expect the legislation dealing with stem cells to be coming to the floor next week.

I do, however, respond to the gentleman that we are considering bringing to the floor legislation, similar, in terms of specifics, very similar, if not the same, as the bill that passed this House on a bipartisan vote in the last Congress.

We believe that that will be consistent with the President's action this week dealing with the executive order on stem-cell research.

We believe this research provides real hope for some of mankind's most difficult diseases and afflictions and challenges. We think the research is promising.

On the other hand, we want to make sure that it does, in fact, do what we say we want to do. As you know, when we passed legislation like that before, we made it very clear that human cloning was not something that the Congress supported and that we were specifically prohibiting that.

So in answer to your question, I would think the legislation would be very much along those same lines. But we do not expect it to be here this week. I want to tell the gentleman it may be, however, on the floor prior to our leaving for the recess.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. First of all, let me respond. We don't know that. Somebody reported that. We don't know that at all and, very frankly, we don't accept that figure. We don't accept the figure that we will, in fact, lose jobs.

We on this side of the aisle feel very strongly that the working men and women in this country have the right under law to organize and to bargain collectively for wages and benefits and working conditions. We think that is inherent in the rights, in the free market.

Very frankly, I would tell my friend that I have traveled, as he has, in many parts of the world, and rarely have I seen a successful democracy that didn't have a free trade union movement. So we feel very strongly about that. We feel very strongly about the right to organize, and that means that it is the employee's choice of how to organize.

Now, having said all that, let me also say that we have observed that there has been, in many ways, a relationship between the decline in union membership and a decline in the buying power of the American worker.

And the greatest disparity between what average workers make and what the bosses make now exist in our country to a greater extent than any other place in the world. We think that's a problem.

Consumerism is what drives this economy. Consumerism is down, incomes have been frozen, and you see, in my opinion, some of that result.

I don't, by any stretch of the imagination, want to say that the reason that we are in the decline that we are in today, and facing the challenge that we are today, is a direct result of the fact that union membership is down.

But, certainly, I believe that one of the results is the reduction in the buying power of average Americans in this country.

Now, having said that, we passed this bill. We passed it pretty handily. We passed it in the last Congress, and it's our expectation that the Senate is going to be dealing with this legislation. They have not yet considered it; and it is my belief that we want to see whether they can pass it. We believe they can.

We are going to be interested in what action they take.

Will the gentleman yield?

Let me say that, as I said before, we don't believe it's a job-killer, number one. But, number two, the gentleman and I have a disagreement factually as to what the bill does. We don't believe this kills the right of the employees to have a free election at all. Period.

We believe in fact the employee has that choice. The employee has the absolute right to respond, ``No, I don't want to sign your card. Let's have an election. And I will sign it for that purpose, and that purpose only, to give you the 30 percent you need to get the election.''

I think I'm right on 30 percent. But, in any event, we believe this is the employees' choice of how they want to organize, not the employer's choice.

So we are not and did not by passage of this legislation take away from the employees the right to have an election if they so choose.

We think the public lands bill that failed just by two votes yesterday is a very good bill. Overwhelming support. Essentially two-thirds of this House supported it. Two-thirds of the Senate supported it. Actually, I think it was probably even more than that.

In any event, we believe that bill is a very, very good bill. We are hopeful that a number of your members will conclude that maybe they should have voted for it. We will see on that.

So the answer to your question is that we may bring it up either by rule or by suspension, but we want to see this bill pass. Having said that, let me say that Leader Reid, the senior leader of the Senate, has indicated that he is going to file for cloture on that bill in the Senate tomorrow. So they may well move on it as well.

There are a number of options for us to pursue. As you will not be surprised, we are going to pursue the one we think is most successful.

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.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise as a proud sponsor of House Concurrent Resolution 37, legislation which will allow the Greater Washington Soap Box Derby Association to hold the 68th Annual Greater Washington Soap Box Derby on the grounds of the United States Capitol on Saturday, June 20.

Since 1938, when 223 racers descended on Washington, DC, soap box derby racing has had a long and rich tradition in our Nation's Capital.

Although the race location has moved from the original site on New Hampshire Avenue to Capitol Hill, with stops on Massachusetts Avenue, Pennsylvania Avenue, and Eastern Avenue along the way, the ingredients of the race remain the same: home-made engine-less, gravity-powered cars, the spirit of competition, and the pure exhilaration of racing.

The soap box derby consists of dozens of drivers, boys and girls ranging in age from 8 to 17, who have designed and built the cars they race.

These racers are divided into three divisions: stock, super stock, and masters. The local winner of each division will automatically qualify to compete with racers from around the country in the 72nd All- American Soap Box Derby in Akron, Ohio on July 25.

Community groups, police departments, fire departments, and others sponsor children each year, children who may not otherwise be able to participate.

Over the years thousands of the region's young people have participated in this great race. I am proud to report that the last two winners of the Soap Box Derby competition have been neighbors of mine and constituents of the Fifth District of Maryland.

In 2007 Miss Kacie Rader, a neighbor of mine from Mechanicsville, Maryland, and a rising senior in high school at the time, won in the masters division of the 66th Greater Washington Soap Box Derby. Kacie then went on to become the first Marylander to win the national soap box derby title, after competing against 550 other soap box champions.

Kacie's great success was followed last year by another winner, Miss Courtney Rayle. Sixteen years old and also a neighbor from Mechanicsville, Maryland, Courtney won the Greater Washington Soap Box Derby in June 2008. She became the seventh person in her family to do so.

Mr. Speaker, this event has been called ``the greatest amateur racing event in the world'' and it is an excellent opportunity for the contestants from the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia to learn basic building skills while gaining a real sense of accomplishment.

The soap box derby is not just a race. It is an enriching way to engage our youth, and teach them the importance of ingenuity, commitment, and hard work.

I strongly encourage my colleagues to join with me and the other original cosponsors, Representatives Chris Van Hollen, Frank Wolf, James Moran, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Donna Edwards, and Gerry Connolly, in supporting this resolution.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

We have one option here because the government will shut down tomorrow by action of this Congress. And so our alternative is to keep the government operating, to defend our people in many ways, continue health care in many ways, to make sure that the services that are needed and available for our citizens remain so.

The Senate has already deemed the gentleman from Wisconsin's motion to be passed. Why? Because they've gone home. They're not here.

I urge every Member to reject this motion to recommit. Why? Because it will be objected to by at least one Senator, and therefore, the government will shut down.

Pending before the Senate is an appropriation bill passed by this House to fund government and to apply the resources of our country to our country's priorities. The gentleman from California knows that we had to do that numerous times under his chairmanship. Sometimes we passed those bills in January, sometimes we passed them in February, having a very large number of bills because the regular order was not effected within the time frame set forth. He did not like that. I did not like it. We don't like it as a process. None of us like this process, and hopefully we will have the cooperation of both sides so that it is not affected again.

But we have pending in the Senate a bill, the omnibus bill, and let me read to you the quote of the Republican leader of the United States Senate:

``If we want to do a bill immediately, again, my recommendation is the omnibus appropriations bill.'' Hear me. This is Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader.

``These were nine bills that were not passed by October when they should have been passed.'' I agree with that.

``They are ready to go,'' he said. ``They've already been vetted by both sides,'' he said, ``would pass on an overwhelming, bipartisan basis,'' he said, ``and much of that spending, George''--he was speaking to George Stephanopoulos--``would be on things similar to what the President may be asking for in that package.''

He was accurate then; he's accurate now. But unfortunately, the Senate did not effect the passage of this bill in a timely fashion, although they have had it for a significant period of time.

And so the chairman of the Appropriations Committee is confronted with but one option because the option that is offered on the other side will not receive unanimous consent. And the Senate, as I said before, has gone home.

And so I say to all of my colleagues on our side of the aisle, we need to pass this motion, and we need to reject the motion to recommit. And responsibly, there is not another option.

So I ask all, on both sides of the aisle, to give us the opportunity to move forward, to keep the government open, and to continue the debate that the Senate apparently wants to continue to have. The minority does not have the votes in the Senate to do what they want to do. The majority will vote for the omnibus appropriations bill. This is not a question of whether the majority of the Senate is for it, it's a question of whether the minority will stop its passage.

We can be here Saturday and Sunday and Monday and heaven knows how long, but it will not change the fact that confronts us.

Reject this motion to recommit that will not be approved by the Senate, pass the short-term continuing resolution proposed by the chairman, and let us come back next week and work the will of this House and the Senate.

Mr. Chair, It can be easy to think that a neighbor's home troubles are no concern of ours. If we can still pay our mortgages, it's easy enough to shut our doors on their problems.

But the world doesn't work like that. Our prosperity is bound to theirs, in good times and bad. A single foreclosed home can threaten a neighborhood; a neighborhood of foreclosed homes can help bring down the economy of a city; and a nation full of foreclosures can expect economic turmoil, and frozen credit, and layoffs, and decreasing demand, and more layoffs. That is where we are today: a nation with 14 million families' mortgages underwater, and counting; a nation in which foreclosed homes can drive down the value of their neighbors' property by nearly 10 percent.

That's why this bill is so necessary. The Helping Families Save Their Homes Act puts into law some of the most important provisions of President Obama's homeowner stability plan. It makes it easier for lenders to renegotiate mortgages for families who are underwater, close to foreclosure, or nearing bankruptcy. And for families that are driven into bankruptcy by their home payments, this bill allows bankruptcy judges to modify the terms of their loans--a step that is free for taxpayers and could reduce foreclosures by 20 percent. Today, investors can restructure debt on their vacation homes; real estate speculators can do it for their property; corporations can do it for their private planes; and you can even do it if you own a boat. It is only fair that average Americans have the same right for the homes they live and raise their families in.

I also want to make very clear that this bill is not designed for those who bought bigger houses than they knew they could afford. It is made for those who acted responsibly but need this breathing room because of circumstances they could not control--circumstances like unemployment or the nationwide decline in home values.

Maybe someone listening in this chamber, or watching on TV, knows what it's like to lose a home. You know, in a way that I do not, just how wrenching it is to be forced to box up your things and turn over your key.

But this bill is not just about you--it is about all of us. As President Obama said this month, ``In the end, all of us are paying a price for this home mortgage crisis. And all of us will pay an even steeper price if we allow this crisis to deepen.'' The effects go far deeper than one family and one now-vacant house. They go to the health of an entire economy--to the jobs and livelihoods of people on the other side of the continent. They go to a crisis that will not end until this mortgage mess is cleaned up.

So for all of our sakes, we need to pass this bill and begin putting President Obama's plan into effect.