Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I just wanted to join all of my colleagues as we give our thanks to Jack and Jack's family. I am a new Member of Congress, and I didn't get to know Jack Murtha until the fall of 2008 when I was running for Congress. Jack came down to Cincinnati and we visited the VA hospital. We sat down with some veterans and we sat down with the staff of the VA hospital and started talking about PTSD and the PTSD program that we had in Cincinnati.

Jack had such a sincere interest, and he exuded care for those veterans. He wanted to see that what we were doing in Cincinnati was replicated across the country.

Every time I went to Jack and asked for something, every time I approached him, he was open. As I talked to or as I listened to the Members here tonight, there seems to be an underlying theme: We didn't go and Jack asked us for things. Every time you approached Jack Murtha, he was asking what he could do for you. What a great Congressman. What a great dad.

Jack was the type of guy that in his district, he was always asking that question: What can I do for you? And that's the right question. We had perhaps the greatest challenge that we faced in Cincinnati this year, on a jobs program. It was the Joint Strike Fighter, the competitive engine program.

I happened to be the Congressman for the district for GE--Aviation where that engine is made. We were worried. We were worried that we were going to lose a thousand jobs. Now I know it to be a good program. I know it to be a cost-saving program, but the President, the administration, sometimes thinks a little differently about that program.

So I went to Jack, and I said, Jack, I'm really worried about this. This is a lot of jobs in Cincinnati. I believe this is the right thing to do for the country. Without hesitation, he just looked me in the eye and he said, Steve, don't worry about it, we'll take care of it.

I knew that it was taken care of, because I had Jack's word. He was that type of guy. He had that kind of strength and that kind of authority. Every time you approached him, he was always asking what he could do for you.

This House was a great place because of Jack Murtha, and we are a lesser body because of his loss. I lost my father a little over a year ago, and he was a lot like Jack. I hope the two of them have gotten to know each other since Jack's passing, because he reminded me a lot of my dad.

You will be greatly missed, Jack. I thank your family, and I thank your community for sharing you with us and the American people for so long.

Mr. Speaker, though our economy is growing again, we still face record budget deficits and a growing national debt due to the revenue lost during the Great Recession, the reckless tax policies of previous Congresses and the steps we took to turn around the economy. The President's proposal to freeze discretionary spending is an important step to meet this challenge, but we must do more. As we begin the budget process for 2011, Congress needs to make tough choices about spending just like millions of American families are doing to make ends meet during this recession.

As Members of Congress, we need to quit pointing fingers and come together to be smarter about the way we spend taxpayer money. We must enact strict PAYGO principles, stop abusive no-bid contracts, and crack down on wasteful earmarks. Noisy rhetoric about wasteful spending isn't going to reduce the deficit, just as it doesn't create jobs or stimulate the economy.

So I urge lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to put aside politics and business as usual so that our current deficit challenge doesn't become the burden of future generations.

I would thank, Madam Chair, the gentleman from Virginia for leading this hour on our recovery. We talk so much about the job loss that has been created by this Great Recession. But far too often we don't discuss the causes of that job loss, and we don't discuss the direction we are heading in. And so I think it is important to remind the viewers and remind all Americans just where we are.

I was at a luncheon today in Cincinnati, Ohio, with Johnson Investment Counsel. They refer to this as the Great Recession. And they refer to it as the Great Recession because it is the most significant recession that has taken place since the 1930s in the United States.

This recession has lasted for 18 months, longer than any other recession since the Great Depression. This recession has caused a loss of 3.8 percent of the gross domestic product here in the United States, a greater loss than any recession since the Great Depression. This recession has caused the loss of 7.2 million jobs. 7.2 million jobs. The greatest job loss since the Great Depression.

But I think it is important to understand when this recession started. This recession started in 2007, under the policies of the Bush administration. And I know the other side doesn't like us to go back. They want to believe that the world began, that this recession began, in January of 2009. But the facts just don't bear that out.

So I brought this chart. And I brought this chart to explain the job loss that has occurred during this recession. And you can see that in the last 3 months of the Bush administration, this economy lost nearly 2 million jobs. In the last 3 months of the Bush administration alone. As a matter of fact, it is after President Obama took the oath of office that we started turning things around. We are still losing jobs. And I think we all hope that next quarter we will turn this around and see positive growth. We saw growth last quarter. But we are heading in the right direction. And that is the important thing.

Also at the luncheon today, I was struck by the analysis given. And I will just mention the first few points. First of all, the Great Recession is over. The recovery has begun. And I think this is important. Near-term growth has been bolstered by the stimulus and inventory building. There is no question in the minds of economists around the country that the stimulus is working.

I would point you, Mr. Perriello, to just one comment made in the Cincinnati Enquirer this week. It was by the Realtors of Cincinnati. And the Realtors of Cincinnati were praising the stimulus. The headline reads this: ``Realtors, Builders Laud Tax Credit.'' They are praising the tax credit that we passed as a part of the stimulus. Because oftentimes when we talk about the stimulus, this $800 billion package, we forget that $300 billion of it was tax credits. It was tax credits and tax breaks for moderate-income families. And an important credit was to stimulate first-time homebuyers and to help people get back in the housing market. We have achieved that. Realtors understand that, people around the country understand it, because homes are starting to sell. And it is thanks to the efforts of this Democratic Caucus.

I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia.

Madam Speaker, I think it's important to look back and to determine where this deficit started. And when you look back, it's back in the Clinton administration when we began to turn around the budget here in the United States, where we began to go from deficits to surpluses and we were actually paying down on the debt.

At the beginning of the Bush administration, they had a choice. They had a choice: Should we continue paying off that debt, should we continue paying down the debt in order to support future generations, or, do we want to gain short-term political gain? I think Republicans in Congress and the Bush administration chose that short-term political gain, because we know what they did. They decided to pursue tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, we engaged in two different wars that were not paid for, and we engaged in reckless spending. And that led to what? The greatest deficits that we have ever seen in the United States.

When we came in the numbers were off the charts, literally off the charts. Americans had never seen deficits like this. They could have chosen a different course. They could have said it's not the fiscally responsible thing to do right now, to pursue these massive tax cuts for the wealthy. They could have said if we're going to engage in war, we're actually going to pay for it as we go. But they decided not to, and they engaged in reckless spending.

So where has that left us? It required us to make an investment and to continue to spend in order to end this recession, because if we didn't make expenditures in the stimulus, the recession would have gone longer and the recession would have been deeper. I already mentioned that this was the longest recession that we have experienced since the Great Depression. It would have been significantly longer were it not for the stimulus. We know this to be true.

I gave an example earlier of the Realtors. Just this weekend, the Realtors and homebuilders were praising the tax credits in the stimulus for finally getting first-time home buyers back into the market. But we spent a lot of time here tonight talking about new energy technology and how we're going to build this economy in the future, and it is through investment in energy and manufacturing and clean technologies that we're going to move forward.

Just today, Ted Strickland, the Governor of the State of Ohio, gave his State of the State address. In that, the Governor said, I believe in Ohio because Ohio will power the future.

So I want to challenge the gentleman from Virginia, because Ohio is poised. Ohio is poised to lead this Nation in manufacturing, in clean energy technology.

And I'll just give you one more story because it's a good one. Several months

ago, I went out to a business in my district called XTech. Now this was a business that was really reliant upon the steel industry. They make steel rollers for the steel industry. They're made from steel. They sell to the steel industry. I went there thinking, Wow, they're not going to particularly like the investments that we're making in the stimulus in new energy technology. They're not going to like the direction that we're heading in terms of greenhouse gasses. Instead, when I walked in, they said, Thanks. Thanks for your support and thanks for the Congress. Because we get it. You get it. They realized that they were one of the few manufacturers in all of the United States that has the ability to make the steel gears for windmills, windmills that are being built and going up across the country.

Now, we could allow European countries to build these parts. We could allow European countries to sell into the United States. But because of the investments we're making in new energy technology, because of the investments this Congress is making to get us out of this recession, businesses like XTech see a future where there was no future before. That's what the stimulus has meant. Has it required additional spending? Yes. But that additional spending has allowed us to reduce the size of the recession, the duration of the recession, and put Americans back to work.

With that, I yield back.

It was a good team.

I thank the gentleman from New York. Picking up on the point about multitasking and getting a host of things done. We haven't talked much tonight, and I think it's important. I have the honor of serving on the Financial Services Committee, and I think one of the most important things that we have done for the American people since we have been here is to make sure that we don't go back from where we came. And that is, we don't re-create what created this recession in the first place.

Recently we passed regulatory reform here in the House. The Senate now has that bill in front of them, in front of Senator Dodd's committee, and I hope they take it up. And I hope they take it up in short order because what we were able to do in the House version of regulatory reform was to say, you know, these mortgage-backed securities, these credit default swaps, these crazy derivative products that no one was paying any attention to, that the Republicans in Congress said we didn't need to regulate but we know led to the great recession, what we did for the first time, we actually addressed it.

And we said, We're not going to allow the systemic risk in the system any longer. We're going to protect the American people because it's the folks in our neighborhoods, it's the folks in our communities that we represent that continue to pay the price.

So while the Wall Street barons are doling out bonuses left and right on Wall Street, the folks back in my neighborhood are still dealing with the foreclosure crisis. We still have hundreds, if not thousands, of homes in Cincinnati that have been foreclosed on. It's the neighborhoods that are paying the price. I haven't seen the investment banks step up and say that they're creating a community fund for communities across the United States to help alleviate some of the damage that was caused. Instead, they're patting themselves on the back. They're doling out bonuses.

Well, the school systems in our urban core, the small businesses in our urban core, the neighborhoods themselves and families still continue to struggle. They continue to struggle because of the unregulated activity of Wall Street. So we stepped up, and we took responsibility. We passed regulatory reform, and we're going to hold them accountable so that this doesn't happen again in the future.

With that, I'll pass it back to the gentleman from Virginia.

I want to thank the gentlelady from Pennsylvania for her comments. And I think tomorrow we're going to hear from the President, and the President is going to challenge us. Because while we know we've seen a 60 percent increase in the stock market over the last year, we also know that we're not to the point yet where we're creating jobs. I think all of us are very worried that while we are entering into a recovery, we're fearful that it's going to be a jobless recovery. We need to focus on creating jobs.

The President is going to challenge us tomorrow night to control spending while at the same time making strategic investments in jobs and job growth across the United States. That's what we're trying to do in infrastructure. That's what we're doing in clean-energy technology. That's what we're doing through our access to education, higher education, in the bills that we've passed earlier in the year. That's the challenge before us.

I think the American people are really sick and tired, quite frankly, of seeing Democrats and Republicans fight against each other because they feel that they are the ones that pay the price for that, and I think they're right. We need to come together. We need to come together, accept the President's challenge, and move forward to create jobs in the United States. So with that, I'll hand it back to the gentleman from Virginia.

Madam Speaker, I'd like to congratulate Winton Woods High School on their football team's Division II State Title. Last Friday, December 4, 2009, the Winton Woods Warriors traveled north to Massillon, Ohio, where they brought home the school's first-ever state title with a 42-12 win over Maple Heights. Under the leadership of Coach Troy Everhart, the Warriors capped an outstanding season, boasting a 13-2 record. The Warriors' achievements this season are a source of pride for Winton Woods High School and all of greater Cincinnati. Congratulations, again, to Winton Woods High School on a great season and a great win.

Winton Woods High School

Dr. Terri Holden, Principal.

Dr. Camille Nasbe, Superintendent.

Team Roster

2--Cornelius Roberts, 3--Corey Webber, 4--Juan Glover, 5--

Tyler Smith, 6--Judge Marvin, 7--Thomas Owens, 8--Demond

Hill, 9--Bryon McCorkle, 10--Dominique Brown, 11--Jalen

Bradley, 12--Iel Freeman, 14--Julian Barnett, 16--Gary

Underwood, 18--Antonio Poole, 20--Donshea Harris, 21--Markus

Jackson, 22--Jeremiah Goins, 23--Zack Bomar, 24--Mike

Crawford, 25--Chuck Wynn.

26--Antonio Sweeney, 28--Keeno Hollins, 29--Chris

Stallworth, 30--Raheem Elston, 32--David Hampton, 33--Aaron

Kemper, 34--Harrison Butler, 35--Pryde Geh, 36--Avery

Cunningham, 38--Steffon Rodgers, 45--Johnathan Barwick, 46--

Zauntre Dyer, 48--Tyler Gist, 50--Da'Sean Dykes, 51--James

Richardson, 52--Perrin Cunningham, 53--Brad Thompson, 54--

Josh Bailey.

55--Walter Richardson, 56--Harrison Reid, 58--Cameron

Brown, 60--Hudson Pande, 61--Desmond Jarman, 62--Carlos Gray,

63--Aaron Patton, 65--Patrick Lett, 67--Tyler Nelson, 68--

Jalen Crenshaw, 70--Donavan Myers, 71--D J Darby, 72--Marcus

Murphy, 77--Brendan Gordon, 79--Mike Roach, 81--Dominic Bell,

82--Robbie Lewis, 83--Austin Mitchell, 85--Rodney Lofton,

86--Zach Campbell, 89--Stephen Tucker.

Troy Everhard, Head Coach.

Coaches: Jeff Sweeney, Tony Boyd, Isaac Fuller, Andre

Parker, Mike Middleton, Derrick Jenkins, Justin Long, Art

Wilson, Calvin Johnson, Donnie Gillespie, Larry Turney, Ben

Spector.

Herb Woeste, Athletic Director.

Madam Speaker, when the American people listen to this debate, they hear a lot of rhetoric, but they don't get much in the way of facts as they were not able to sit through all of the committee hearings which so many of us went through. I want to go through some facts because I hear about amendments not being offered.

The fact of the matter is that we have spent weeks marking up this bill in committee. We had over 65 hours of debate alone in the markup. The hearings concerning these issues have been going on for the entire year. The number of Republican amendments heard in committee was 137. One hundred thirty-seven Republican amendments were heard in committee. There were over 50 rollcall votes on those Republican amendments. There were over 140 Democratic amendments and over 30 bipartisan amendments. There were days and days of markup in considering the legislation.

What the Republicans don't want you to pay any attention to is their inaction for years on these critical issues. We had predatory lending legislation in 2001. They don't want to let you know that it was ignored, that it was ignored again in 2002, in 2003, in 2004, in 2005, in 2006, and in 2007. They don't want you to know that, for all of the years that they were in power, they failed to take up this legislation.

Now we have legislation, and they bring out stacks of paper with fewer words than in a Harry Potter book. I don't know if we have to get as small as ``Good Night, Moon'' or as ``Harold and the Purple Crayon.'' I'm not quite sure what it takes. This is a big topic, and that's why we took so much time in committee to address the complexities of a derivatives market run astray. That's why we took the time to address the complexity of mortgage-backed securities, which wasn't addressed during those many years the Republicans were in power.

The results of that inaction are millions of foreclosures across the States, the worst recession since the Great Depression, over 700,000 jobs lost the month the President was sworn into office. This is because of the inaction of the Republican Party.

Now the American people demand that we step up and that we take action. What do they want to do? They want to do the same thing they did when they were in power year after year after year, which is nothing.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate very much listening to my Republican colleagues. I, too, came in in the freshman class, along with my Republican colleagues, and I came to the floor tonight, Mr. Speaker, to talk about the economy and to talk about regulatory reform and what we're doing to address the foreclosure crisis here in the United States. But I can't allow some of the comments that I just heard go without challenge.

I heard it said that we've only been given 72 hours to read the bill. Now I think, Mr. Speaker, you probably remember back at the end of July, there was a push to try to vote on the health care plan. I, along with you, I believe, and many others suggested that the American people have time, that they have time to read the health care bill, that we have time to digest this. We went home. We held town meetings. I don't know about the other Members of Congress. I know I had more than 100 meetings on health care during that time period. So we have had far more than 72 hours.

But then they said, We need 72 hours for this particular bill. So the bill, itself, which is simply a modification of bills that we have been discussing, that we've been hearing in committee, bills that we have been meeting on for months was introduced on Friday. I put it on my Web site. Many people put it on their Web site. There has been plenty of time. If you want to oppose health care, then obviously that is up to you to oppose health care. But let's not hide behind this thing about 72 hours. We have had months to discuss this. We will have far more than 72 hours to look and review the bill at hand.

I also want to talk about small businesses, because I know, Mr. Speaker, you and I have worked very closely on this in protecting small businesses in the health care reform bill. As you recall, the bill as originally introduced had a threshold of $250,000 for payroll. That is, any small business that had more than $250,000 in payroll would be subject to a surcharge, a surcharge where they pay their fair share. That has been increased in this bill to $500,000, a significant increase for small businesses. I don't know what businesses my colleagues from the Republican side are visiting, but I can tell you when I go out to small businesses, be they Democrat or Republican, they're talking about their premium increases. They're talking about their premium increases of 20 percent, of 30 percent. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, this is all about small businesses. This is about protecting small businesses. Because right now in the State of Ohio, the State I hail from, less than 50 percent of small businesses are able to provide health care to their employees; less than 50 percent. It's because of those rising costs. So while they say it does nothing for individuals, well, they're absolutely wrong. If you're an individual working for a small business and the employer cannot afford health care, this bill helps you; it helps you, and it helps your family. If you're an individual with a preexisting condition, you happen to be ill and you need to get health insurance, you can't do it right now. Does this bill help those individuals? Absolutely. If you're an individual that has health insurance and you happen to get sick, and you need to draw upon that health insurance, right now you can be cut off. This bill says, No. You can't do that any longer. The insurance company can't stop covering you for your illness. So this bill is all about helping small businesses and helping individuals.

I would encourage my colleagues to read the bill. Yes, it's long. But we're beyond chapter books at this point. We are able to read long bills. It's long because this is a comprehensive piece of legislation, and I think it deserves debate. It deserves far more than rhetoric. But rhetoric is what you tend to hear when you come down to the House floor. Rhetoric is what you tend to hear when Republicans line up and give 1-minute speech after 1-minute speech after 1-minute speech, be it about energy or health care or the economy. The other side of the aisle is big on rhetoric, but they're not big on solutions, nor are they big on taking responsibility. They act as if they weren't here. They act as if they weren't in charge since 1994, that they weren't elected in the Newt Gingrich majority, that they didn't have power until 2006. But the fact of the matter is that they were the party in party. They were the party in control. They were the party as this housing crisis spiraled out of control. They were the party as the rising costs of health care kept mounting and mounting and mounting and harming our small businesses and harming our economy.

The U.S. Economy

For the 8 years prior to being elected to Congress, Mr. Speaker, I was a State representative in Ohio. I come from a working-class neighborhood in Cincinnati, and I saw house after house being foreclosed on. Now I didn't know what was happening in 2001. I didn't know what was happening in 2002. So we put together a housing task force, and we started asking questions. We started looking into some of these loans that were being floated to my neighbors, to folks in my neighborhood to figure out why these houses were going into foreclosure. And it was interesting. We found that people who never should have qualified for loans were suddenly qualified. People that couldn't even document that they had the income to purchase a home were qualifying for home loans. Then, of course, they couldn't afford to pay the mortgages, and those were the houses being foreclosed on. We call these subprime loans. When people who can't afford to pay their bills, people who have poor credit scores are able to get a loan, those are subprime loans, as opposed to people who do pay their bills and they do have high credit scores. Those are prime loans.

So we looked at this, and we looked at some of the practices of the financial institutions, and we just scratched our heads and said, Well, how is it that a financial institution can float a loan to somebody that can't prove their income, can float a loan to somebody that has a poor credit history, yet they're purchasing an $80,000 home, they're purchasing a $120,000 home? How is this happening?

Well, the answer is, Mr. Speaker, it was all about what was going on on Wall Street. It was all about what was going on on Wall Street because what was going on on Wall Street was that people were making a lot of money, and they were making a lot of money off of these products that are called derivatives or mortgage-backed securities or credit default swaps.

The world had changed in the area of mortgage finance in the early 2000s. The world had changed dramatically. What had happened was this. Where in the past if you wanted to buy a home, you wanted to achieve the American Dream, you would go down to your bank, you would go down to the savings and loan, and you would talk to

the loan officer. They would work with you to negotiate a mortgage. They would work with you to negotiate that loan, and then they would hold on to the mortgage paper. And this is important. They held the mortgage paper as part of their portfolio. It was their investment portfolio. It was a long-term investment on the part of the financial institution.

But what we found out was that the world had changed. No longer were these financial institutions holding on to that paper. In many cases, no longer were they the local bank or the local savings and loan. They were out-of-town entities who had never seen your house, and who had never looked at the appraisal. The reason they were closing those loans was because of those mortgage-backed securities on Wall Street. You see, they were able to close those loans and they would immediately sell them. They would sell them on the secondary market, and then they would bundle the loans into thousands of mortgage loans that were sold on Wall Street as a security, a mortgage-backed security.

So what happened? Well, the folks that were closing the loans, because they were no longer holding the paper, because they no longer had any skin in the game, they were qualifying everybody that walked in the door. They were qualifying everybody that walked in the door at the highest prices they could possibly get. So, rather than saying, you know, we are going to put you in a 30-year fixed because it is a more stable product or a 15-year fixed because it is a more stable product, we are going to get you in this 3-year, adjustable-rate mortgage. And, oh, by the way, this rate, yes, it is a good rate right now, but it is going to adjust in 3 years. Oh, and there is this little prepayment penalty that is also in the loan. So, yes, I know it is a stretch for you right now, you who are a subprime borrower, you who don't have a steady job, and you who may be making a stretch to make this loan payment every month, yes, I know it is a stretch, but you can qualify. You can achieve the American Dream.

The reality was this, in those 2 or 3 years when that interest rate started adjusting, and in some cases it was adjusting every 3 or 4 months, when it started adjusting, that stretch was no longer a reality for many of those families. They tried to get out. They wanted to renegotiate, but they couldn't renegotiate because they had this prepayment penalty of a thousand dollars or $2,000. So if they couldn't afford their $600 a month loan, they are not going to be able afford the $1,000 or the $2,000 in the prepayment penalty. So they give up. They throw up their arms and walk away. That is a foreclosure. That was happening time after time after time in my neighbor and neighborhoods across Ohio and across the country.

So what do we do? Well, we in the State legislature said wait a minute, we have to do something about this. We have to stop this predatory behavior. And we tried. We tried in the State of Ohio. But in the State of Ohio, like so many other States, we had very little authority because the financial institutions were regulated by the Federal Government.

So we turned to the Federal Government to help us out. This is where we get back to who was in charge. In 2001, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a tremendous Congresswoman from Ohio, introduced predatory lending legislation. And we had predatory lending legislation introduced in every session of Congress after that. So in 2001, we could have done something. In 2002, we could have done something. In 2003, we could have made a difference. In 2004, we could have enacted predatory lending legislation. In 2005, we could have protected those homeowners. In 2006, we could have done something about it.

There were millions of homes going into foreclosure, but this body stood silent. This body, controlled by the Republican Party, stood silent, and they didn't address the foreclosures. They didn't address the runaway greed on Wall Street in the form of mortgage-backed securities and derivatives that were leveraged up to 30 and 40 times. They didn't address any of it. They said the markets will work it out. We don't need government intervention.

But when housing prices went south and the investors in those mortgage-backed securities soon learned, you know, those mortgages aren't worth much, all of a sudden the bottom fell out of the market. And that inaction, it is that inaction that caused this recession.

This was a recession precipitated by the financial markets. It was precipitated by what was going on in mortgage finance, and it caused the near collapse of our economy. It caused the near collapse of financial institutions across the globe.

So at the end of last year, in September of last year, the Congress was asked, President Bush pleaded with the Congress to pass a bailout for the banks, a bailout that many Americans never wanted to see. But the reality was that things had gotten so bad that but for the intervention of the Federal Government, we could have had the collapse of the financial markets globally all due to the inaction of the Federal Government.

That's where we were. And so now we hear Republicans come down to the floor of the House and act as if the world just began in January of 2009, acting as if all of these problems started just this January. I liken it to this, Mr. Speaker. When I go out and talk about the mortgage crisis and the calamity that has occurred, I say it is like somebody causing a 20-car pileup on the highway and then we show up with the tow truck to try to clean things up, and they start yelling at us for blocking traffic.

You see, we have been elected to clean up the mess, we being elected to clean up the mess caused by the inaction. That is what we are doing. That is why in the Financial Services Committee we are working on regulatory reform. That is why this Congress has passed predatory lending legislation. That is why this administration has worked to save thousands of homes across this country.

I am joined tonight, Mr. Speaker, by my friend, also a new legislator, from the State of Connecticut, Jim Himes, who has been a tremendous member of the Financial Services Committee, bringing both experience on Wall Street as well as in the neighborhoods.

Jim, why don't you talk a little bit about from your perspective and what you have seen.

Well, you know, I just want to echo your comments, Congressman, because what I see is fierce defense of the status quo by the Republicans, and I think it's important to remind people what the status quo has brought us.

I mentioned earlier I come from Cincinnati, Ohio. Just last year, this is what Hamilton County looked like in terms of the foreclosure map. You can see there were thousands of foreclosures in Hamilton County. There were thousands of foreclosures across the State of Ohio. And when there is a foreclosure next door or when there is a foreclosure across the street, it doesn't just affect the family and the financial institution that agreed to that mortgage. It affects the neighbor next door; it affects your property value; it affects the schools when kids have to be pulled out of the schools; it affects the small businesses down the street when doors are shuttered, when windows are shuttered in neighborhoods. It costs entire neighborhoods.

But, again, I go back to this time period when we saw thousands of foreclosures across our States and we were begging the Federal Government to do something about it. And what is the response we hear today from the Republicans who were in charge at that time? They blamed the Community Reinvestment Act, passed in 1977, a bill that incentivized financial institutions to make loans, to make good loans in the neighborhoods where loans weren't going. The Community Reinvestment Act didn't say make bad loans. It said make good loans, and we, the Federal Government, will give you credit for making loans in those communities. It has worked well, and it has served our communities well.

You have worked in community development just like I have, and we know how valuable the Community Reinvestment Act is to those communities. But the Republicans, in order to hide from the failure of inaction, want to point to an act passed in 1977 and say somehow that this Community Reinvestment Act was forcing banks to loan into these neighborhoods. Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, said that's ridiculous, that just didn't happen. And the Community Reinvestment Act has served us well. But enough, enough of the blame. There is so much blame that is offered in this Chamber.

What do we know? The fact is we were elected to do something about the crisis. We were elected to clean up that pileup on the road. So when we came in with this administration, this administration acted very aggressively in terms of addressing foreclosures. We passed a very aggressive bill that cracks down on predatory lending.

The administration, working with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and working with the Department of the Treasury, has initiated a foreclosure prevention program that has already saved hundreds of thousands of homes in the United States. We passed a credit card bill that protects consumers and protects consumers against credit card companies who are increasing interest rates and increasing fees on consumers.

We just, last week, passed the Consumer Financial Protection Act, which again brings financial protections to consumers around financial products. You know, it was often stated in the State of Ohio that you had more protections purchasing a toaster than you did a house. In many cases that's true because we do have consumer protections when it comes to products, and we do have consumer protections when it comes to toys; but we didn't have much in the way of consumer protection when it comes to the most valuable purchase of your life in the case of many of us.

Well, talking about the credit default swaps at AIG, not only did you have the people engaging in the sale of credit default swaps, which they knew they could never honor, but they were getting bonuses for doing it. There were perverse incentives at play at AIG and at other financial institutions that incentivized payment structures for the sale of these very instruments. So when we wanted to look at executive compensation, we were criticized by the other side. And we said, look, we're not trying to take away people's pay; we believe in fair pay for hard work. But what we don't believe in is these compensation packages that incentivize incredibly risky behavior when the individual engaging in the practice doesn't have any skin in the game.

And as you know, we are now looking at the systemic risk that is involved in all of this, that is, what is the risk inherent with some of these products? What is the risk inherent with some of these institutions that have been deemed too big to fail? Shouldn't we regulate that? Shouldn't we regulate those institutions? Shouldn't we regulate those products so that they don't get too big that their failure could bring down the economy? Shouldn't we regulate those instruments, those financial instruments that if they fail would cause hundreds of thousands of foreclosures across the United States? Isn't that in the best interest of the people of the United States, to step in and actually regulate this behavior? That's what we're taking on right now.

But every step of the way, Congressman, every step of the way when we tried to protect consumers from the credit card companies, so many Republicans said no. When we tried to establish the Consumer Financial Protection Agency to protect consumers who were trying to buy homes, the Republicans said no. When we're looking at systemic risk, we're now hearing it on the other side: no, let the status quo rule. The status quo has brought us the worst recession in our lifetimes.

In the end, Congressman, this is about protecting jobs because this recession has cost millions of jobs across this country. We have millions of families suffering today because of the inaction of Congress, the inaction of the Federal Government when it came to the runaway greed on Wall Street. We've paid the price, so now we are picking up the pieces. But we see unemployment in the double digits. We are now seeing some improvement when it comes to those unemployment rates; we are seeing fewer people losing their jobs.

But we are joined now by our good friend, Congressman John Boccieri, my colleague from Ohio. And certainly in northern Ohio just as southern Ohio we have seen tremendous job loss. But we are about action. We are about picking up the pieces and trying to put it back together, as opposed to the inaction of the other side.

Well, I think the point is well taken because this is about creating boundaries.

You know, we often have this discussion back home about free markets and capitalism and about allowing free markets and capitalism to thrive. That's what we're all about. We support that and we support that wholeheartedly, but when the behaviors of certain actors on Wall Street or when the behaviors of people acting within the free market cause harm to the public good and cause harm to neighborhoods, it is the job of the government to step in and say, Hold it. Wait a minute. It's okay if you make a profit. It's okay if you sell your goods. It's okay if you produce those goods, but if it's causing harm to the people we are sent here to protect, then maybe we need to intervene. Maybe we need to regulate in a reasonable fashion. That's what we've been doing on Financial Services. It's all about commonsense regulation. It's about stepping in and protecting consumers.

On the other side, all we hear is ``no.'' It's just like health care. It's just like energy. Yeah, they'll step up and say, Yeah, this is a problem. Oh, yeah, this recession is a problem. This double-digit unemployment that we see in our States, yeah, that's a problem.

When it comes to solutions, the book is really thin on the other side.

You know, yeah, we introduced big bills on health care. We introduced bills on energy to protect our energy security across the United States. Yeah, we introduced several bills to regulate properly the financial markets.

We're doing the work of the people, and we're fixing what is broken. The other side is saying, Let's leave it broken because the solution is not something we want to see. That's the problem.

Well, Congressman, I appreciate the remarks about responsibility because we started this off by talking about responsibility.

You know, it strikes me that the four of us are freshman Members of Congress. When we started running for Congress 2 years ago, none of us knew that we would be walking in the door in January with record job loss in the United States, that we would be in the middle of the worst recession that we have seen in our lifetimes and that we would be walking into a catastrophe. Now, we could run away from that, and we could say these are tough responsibilities, and we need to just say ``no'' and pretend like none of that responsibility falls on us or we could do something about it.

I think that I, like all of you, came here to fix the problems. We came here to step up to that responsibility. We came here to protect those American families who were losing their jobs, those American families who were losing their health care, those American families who knew that Congress for so many years had protected the barons on Wall Street but failed to protect them around their kitchen tables.

We hear all the time on the other side that it's not their fault. They weren't here. They weren't in power for 14 years or 16 years or however many years that was. Apparently, they weren't here. Well, it is our job as Members of Congress to take responsibility, and that's what we're doing.

So, when we look at commonsense regulatory reform around financial institutions, when we look at protecting consumers, when we look at stepping up and at modifying mortgages to keep people in their homes, when we look at stepping up and at addressing issues like health care or energy, it is all about our taking responsibility. It is all about this Congress' stepping up and working together to achieve the common goals that help all of our families across this country. We can say it's not our responsibility, and we can take a backseat and just say ``no,'' but that's not what we were elected to do. We were elected to lead, and I think that is what we are doing in Financial Services.

Mr. Perriello.

Congressman, I very much appreciate your efforts in those regards. Congressman Himes, if you want to wrap us up, I yield the floor to you.

Gentlemen, I appreciate you coming down to the floor this evening. This is about solutions. This is about stepping up to responsibilities. This is why we were elected.

We hear so often on the other side the naysayers come down and talk about what won't work. They don't talk about the responsibility, the common responsibility we have. They run away from the years that they were in charge.

But this is about stepping up to responsibilities and making a difference. While it's not always perfect, we are doing what's right by the American people and doing what's right by the families that elected us to represent them.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back.

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. And I want to acknowledge the tremendous work of Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz and Congresswoman Myrick on this issue.

I hail from the great State of Ohio. We looked into the breast cancer statistics in the State of Ohio, and we learned that more than 8,000 new diagnoses occur every year for men and women in the State of Ohio with breast cancer. And nearly 2,000 breast cancer fatalities still occur every year in the State of Ohio.

While this rate has declined in recent years, in part due to the emphasis on early detection and treatment, we all know that it's still way too high.

In Southwest Ohio, we've made progress. We have the Breast Cancer Alliance of Greater Cincinnati, focusing on advocacy, education, and communication. We have the Cris Collinsworth ProScan Fund, promoting breast cancer awareness and education, providing access to early breast cancer detection services, and offering support to breast cancer patients. We've got the Breast Cancer Registry of Greater Cincinnati, housed at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, which is designed to obtain information from and about women and men diagnosed with breast cancer, with a purpose to support research about the causes of breast cancer.

But while all of these things lead to greater awareness and greater education around breast cancer, it's interventions like the EARLY Act and the Breast Cancer Awareness Month that help us bring national attention and national focus to young women, older women, young men, and older men about the dangers of breast cancer.

I remember when I was just a little boy my grandma's being diagnosed with breast cancer. I didn't know what it meant at the time. I knew grandma was sick. I knew she was in trouble. She eventually succumbed to cancer. And I think just like every one of us, we have those stories. But back then when I was a little boy, we didn't have this awareness about breast cancer. We didn't have the early diagnosis that we have today. And that's why so many women lost their lives to this dreaded disease.

We are making progress in this country. We are making tremendous progress. And it's through actions like the EARLY Act, it's through actions like Breast Cancer Awareness Month that we make that progress.

So I again want to applaud my colleagues on the floor tonight and lend the voice of the men of America in support of these efforts. I am proud to be a cosponsor of the legislation. I think it's a critically important piece of legislation, and I appreciate your taking the time tonight to again educate the people in America on the issue.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Madam Chair, as we discuss H.R. 3221, I would like to draw attention to a critical component of the bill, and that is the College Completion and Innovation Fund.

This amendment, Madam Chair, impacts one portion of the College Completion and Innovation Fund, and that specifically is the State Innovation and Completion Grants. About 50 percent of the College Completion and Innovation Fund goes to State Innovation and Completion Grants. These are targeted at low-income and disadvantaged populations in each of our States, and they are meant to incentivize States to engage in creative efforts with low-income communities, working with nonprofits, working with universities, to provide grants for these populations.

With that, the State has to provide to the Department of Education a plan describing how they will utilize the funds. This amendment is quite simple in that it states that in that plan we must target and we must include dislocated workers.

And I think you will agree, Madam Chair, and I think most of the Members will agree, that in this economy, with the number of employees that are currently unemployed, we need to be targeting and looking at the skill sets of dislocated workers. Because when we talk about innovation and education, when we talk about reeducating our workforce, there is no more important population than those that are recently unemployed. And as we move toward a new technology economy, it's critical that although we have tremendous workers across the United States, we appreciate the fact that they need more education, that they need retooling in order to make them competitive for the jobs of the 21st century in order for us to compete in a global marketplace.

So this is a simple amendment, Madam Chair, and it simply says to the States that we need to be focusing on those dislocated workers.

I yield to the distinguished chair of the committee, Mr. Miller.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on September 1, we lost an artist who helped shape a generation of music in this country. For more than 40 years, Erich Kunzel shared his remarkable talent and passion with music lovers across greater Cincinnati and around the world. His tireless leadership and enthusiasm helped build the Cincinnati Pops into a musical organization without peer. Their many recordings over the years brought classical and contemporary masterpieces into the homes of countless Americans. Whether directing from his podium at Riverbend Music Center or leading the National Symphony Orchestra, as he did here in Washington every year on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, Maestro Kunzel was a source of pride for Cincinnati and a mainstay of our Nation's musical community. He will be dearly missed by all of us whose lives were enriched by his boundless creativity.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the subcommittee chairman for all of his support in this legislation, and also my colleague on the other side of the aisle, Mr. Lee from New York, for his tremendous support.

This is simply a good government bill, Mr. Speaker. H.R. 3330 is about protecting the financial institutions but providing efficiency, efficiency when it comes to the Inspectors General.

What we're dealing with today is material loss reviews, and right now we have a problem in the United States in that our Inspectors General, who are charged with conducting material loss reviews, can't keep up with the number of financial institutions who are experiencing these losses.

So we have been requested by the FDIC to look at the threshold. And what this bill does is it increases the threshold in the case of our financial institutions from $25 million in losses to $200 million in losses. And in the case of our credit unions, from $10 million in losses to $25 million in losses.

And if I might, Mr. Speaker, I would like to read briefly from a letter dated July 17, 2009, from Jon Rymer, the Inspector General of the FDIC. And in this letter, Mr. Rymer says, As of today, my office has conducted and completed nine material loss reviews under section 38(k) of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act. We now have an additional 31 reviews in the planning or production phase.

Based on publicly available projections alone, we believe the numbers of reviews that will be required under the law as it presently exists will continue to grow significantly in the foreseeable future.

We require that the Inspectors General complete these reviews within 6 months. And right now, given the threshold, they simply don't have the ability to do that. So this is a good government measure, a good government measure that without increasing spending, without increasing taxes, we make government more efficient. And it's simply increasing the threshold to allow the Inspectors General to do their jobs while at the same time allowing them to look at the smaller financial institutions if such reviews are warranted.

Yes, that is correct. The purpose of H.R. 3330 is to increase and improve oversight conducted by the Inspectors General. Congress and our constituents will continue to learn important information from these material loss review reports, posted online within 3 days, so we can better understand why financial institutions failed. My bill will not change that at all.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I believe this is a good, commonsense bill. This is about helping our Inspectors General do their job and do it well. We have heard from both sides of the aisle how important the work they are doing is to the health and safety of our financial institutions and to our financial system. I would encourage all of my colleagues to support this good-government piece of legislation. I thank them for their support.

Mr. Speaker, if you want to see where the stimulus package is saving and creating jobs, come to Cincinnati.

Yesterday, the Department of Justice announced $17 million in grants for local law enforcement in my district. These grants will help local governments that are struggling to maintain services. But more than that, this funding is going to keep 66 full-time officers on the streets protecting the people of greater Cincinnati.

Some of my friends in this Chamber have said that the stimulus isn't working. Ask the 66 officers who will still have their jobs whether or not the stimulus is working. Ask their families. Ask people in the neighborhoods they are protecting.

Public safety matters, and the stimulus is working to keep our communities safe.

Madam Speaker, today we celebrate the life of Dr. Raphael Katzen as well as his 60-year career and vast accomplishments in the biofuel industry.

Called the ``biofuel world champion'' by a dear friend, Raphael Katzen was a pioneer in the ethanol industry. Dr. Katzen saw ethanol grow from a World War II emergency measure to a five billion-gallon industry. Beside establishing Raphael Katzen Associates International, Inc., a company well known and respected for its focus on innovation and next-generation technology, Dr. Katzen was named a fellow of both the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the American Institute of Chemists. Among his many accolades, Dr. Katzen received the prestigious Professional Practice Award of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, an award that earned him recognition by the Ohio House of Representatives. He also received the C.D. Scott Award of the Symposium on Biotechnology and Bioengineering. In 1996 Dr. Katzen was honored for his lifetime of achievements in bioengineering by election to the National Academy of Engineering.

While all of Dr. Katzen's accomplishments are impressive, perhaps most memorable will be his timeless drive and innovation that kept him on the cutting edge of technology development. Even in his 90s, he could still be found asking tough questions and pushing the envelope at industry conferences.

On behalf of the Congress of the United States and the citizens of Ohio's First Congressional District, it is an honor to recognize the life and career of this remarkable man.

Thank you very much, Congressman Boccieri, and I would agree that this is about action versus inaction.

From 1994 until 2006, the Republican Party ruled the Congress. They ruled the House of Representatives, and they were at the root of the inaction. This energy crisis didn't sneak up on us. This health care crisis didn't sneak up on us. The housing bubble and the financial crisis didn't sneak up on us. We could have done something. We could have done something about our reliance on foreign energy. We could have done something about health care. We could have done something about the financial institutions. But my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, rather than act, they chose not to act. So I agree wholeheartedly that we will be judged on what we are willing to do for this country.

I have a couple of observations about the bill that we passed, and I have never seen so much information--misinformation, on a bill in my life as I saw on this one.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle--who are chatting--were spreading rumors. They were spreading rumors about costs of $4,000 a year in tax increases on the energy bill.

Now, I don't know about you, but I talked to my energy friends back home. I talked to my friends at Duke Power, and they suggested that the potential increases, if there are increases--and I would argue that those

increases are going to be offset by savings and they're going to be offset by job creation--but they were spreading misinformation about the cost of this bill; yet it went on and on and on and on.

And then they talked about the fact that no one had read the bill as they searched the Chamber for an amendment that sat right in front of them. Their leader came to the floor with the very amendment and went through page by page that he had earmarked, clearly having had time to read the bill.

The fact of the matter is we have been discussing our reliance upon foreign oil. We have been discussing energy for years.

No.

I'm talking about the misinformation.

No, I won't yield. I have heard misinformation after misinformation come to this floor, and the American people deserve the truth. They deserve the truth.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. Speaker, point of clarification. I am challenging the facts.

I will further clarify it for my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that I believe there was gross exaggeration engaged in on the debate with regard to energy. And the attempt wasn't to solve a problem. The attempt was to scare the American people. They scared the American people rather than addressing the problem, rather than taking on the problem. The attempt was to scare the American people, to scare the American people and suggest to them that this was some type of massive tax increase when, in fact, this is about the energy security of the United States of America. That's what this bill is about. And that's what we had the courage to do.

It is about the job creation for our State of Ohio. It is about job creation and clean energy and new energy jobs across the United States, and it is about ensuring the energy security for our children and future generations. And that's the courage that it took to pass this bill rather than letting it go, letting it go, taking the ostrich approach of sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the problem.

So I appreciate the opportunity to speak, Mr. Boccieri.

Will the gentleman yield?

This goes back to the question of action versus inaction, and the question is, If you don't embark down this road, if you don't address the energy crisis, if you don't work toward a system of cap-and-trade, what's the alternative? And the alternative is simply this:

The EPA comes out with rules cracking down on utilities and emitters of carbon, which would in fact be a massive tax, a massive government mandate on utilities and manufacturers, killing jobs, raising rates for businesses, raising rates for residential consumers. Instead, the choice we made, the choice for action was about using a free-market approach to incentivize job creation, to incentivize creativity, just like we did with telecommunications.

We now have the opportunity to do the same with energy. We believe in the American economy. We believe in the innovation that can be released through the use of a free-market system like cap-and-trade. That's why we went down this road, and that's why we chose to act

I appreciate that, Congressman. I think it begs the question: Do we want the future of this country dependent upon the innovation of the American worker; do we want the future dependent upon green energy and new technologies that will be driven by the American people; or do we want to rely upon and depend upon the sheikhs in Saudi Arabia, as we do today and as we have in the past?

Our dependency is growing, not declining. This bill provides us an opportunity for a future, a destiny controlled by Americans, controlled by the American worker, and unleashing the innovation of the American worker.

I was dismayed during this debate when I heard critics suggest that maybe we shouldn't go first. Maybe shouldn't lead. That we should wait for others--maybe developing countries, maybe others in Asia to lead before we move forward. I don't know when we became a Nation of followers. I am not of that belief.

I believe the United States of America has led time and time again for this vote on issues of freedom, on issues of democracy, on issues of economic innovation. And we should be the leaders on new technology when it comes to energy. We need to lead and we should set an example for the globe.

I am not one to follow the examples of countries on the other side of the world suggesting to us what we should be doing on our energy policy. We should be leaders. And we need to restore our place as leaders when it comes to energy.

Just to back up the gentleman's point, China is moving down that road. They're not waiting. The week after the vote, Jim Rogers, the CEO of Duke Energy, went to China. And he went to China to check out the carbon sequestration that they're currently employing on new Chinese coal-burning power plants. Because the Chinese aren't waiting. The Chinese are moving ahead with new technology.

So we have a choice. We have an opportunity. Do we want to continue with business as usual and just sit still as China moves forward, or do we want to be at the cutting edge, do we want to be leading when it comes to new energy technology?

This is an opportunity. We need to seize that opportunity. And this legislation allows the free market to do that. So that's what this is about. This is about creating jobs and creating an economic future for the United States.

I will just go back to the analogy of telecommunications. If you remember, it wasn't more than a decade or two ago when you were paying exorbitant rates on your long distance bills; there were a very limited number of channels on TV. And then through the Telecommunications Act, we made sure that we allowed for innovation and competition. We allowed for the cable companies and the telephone companies to use those same broadband lines. We required that to happen. And now today broadband is across the country. We have the potential today to unleash that same type of innovation that was unthought of 20 years ago in telecommunications; but we all know it today, as people send IMs, as people e-mail each other--that wasn't thought about 20 years ago--the hundreds of TV stations that you get on cable TV. I don't think we can begin to imagine the innovation that we are going to see over the next several decades in the field of energy because of the steps of this House, because of the steps of this Congress, the courage to move us from the status quo toward energy security for the future and unleashing the innovative nature of the American people.

I appreciate the opportunity, Congressman Boccieri, to be here tonight with you. And I think there is a reason that you see four relatively young Members of Congress standing here talking about the future of energy in the United States. We all have a vested interest in this. We all understand how important this issue is for our future and the future of our kids.

We sat on the sidelines for far too long, as the other side did nothing, as Congressman Ryan explained. They had an opportunity to act when it came to energy policy, creative energy policy that would move us forward into the next generation, but they failed to do it. We have been elected to take responsibility and to move forward on critical issues that are impacting our families today and will impact them in the future. That is what we are doing on financial services. That is what we are doing on energy. That is what we are doing on health care.

On energy, this bill takes us down that road for ensuring a future of prosperity for our children. It is the right thing to do for the country today. It is the right thing to do for our children tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker, until we fix health care in this country, families and small businesses will bear a heavier and heavier financial burden that will slow economic recovery and stifle growth and investment.

In Ohio, health care costs for small businesses have grown 30 percent in recent years. Employer coverage across the State has declined, so that now less than half of all small businesses offer health care coverage benefits to their employees.

The average Ohio family that does receive health care coverage from their employer pays nearly $13,000 in premiums every year. And because more than 1 in 10 Ohioans lives without any health insurance, Ohio's economy loses between $3.5 billion and $7 billion every year due to lost productivity.

The health care crisis is an economic crisis, and part of fixing our economy is ensuring that every single American has quality, affordable health care. The status quo is no longer tolerable for Ohio and no longer tolerable for America.

Mr. Chairman, I am a former Peace Corps volunteer, and I am an American, and the money was spent wisely. As a matter of fact, I don't know if the sponsor is familiar at all with the Peace Corps, but we spend $225 a month on a Peace Corps volunteer. That's what the salary is for a Peace Corps volunteer.

Now, find me a job anywhere else where America's dollars are better spent on foreign policy than for $225 a month. The total cost of the Peace Corps is less than two F-22 fighters, almost 1\1/2\ planes. That's what we spend to send hundreds of thousands of Americans across the globe to help people better understand this United States. That's what we spend, less than two F-22 fighters.

The Peace Corps is critical to the foreign policy of this United States. That is why the Obama administration did not, did not object to this funding increase, because they know it is the right thing to do. It is the most cost-effective foreign policy program we have.

I would urge my colleagues to support the Peace Corps and reject this amendment.