Floor Statements

Well, obviously you've been studying this. I know you, and I have spoken about the problems on the ground, and I appreciate your concern and the interest you have in trying to help us. I wish that the President had that much interest in helping us in the day-to- day problems we're facing. Just the other day I was talking to one of the local fire chiefs who was there on the ground after Katrina, who is there on the ground right now battling the oil, and he said that the level of government dysfunction is higher today--more dysfunction today--than it was during Katrina. A case in point just happened yesterday when this sand barrier plan that our Governor and our entire congressional delegation fought for over 3 weeks to get the President to finally approve. In fact, last week, when the President gave his address to the Nation from the Oval Office, he actually bragged about the fact that he approved this sand barrier plan. Well, yesterday the Federal Government shut it down.

It was shut down yesterday by the Federal Government. Spoke to our Governor's office about it. They basically said it was a Federal agency that shut them down. I talked to the Federal agency today, and they said they didn't shut them down. We went round and round, and of course

they were shut down by the Federal agency. Again, this is a classic problem we have had every day.

Yes. I don't know whether the people in D.C. didn't know what their Federal agents on the ground in south Louisiana knew what they were doing, but it's happening every single day. It seems like we have problems like this every day, so you can't just say it's miscommunication. Clearly, it's a lack of leadership. The President, under the law, is responsible for that leadership, and clearly, he is not doing his job, and he is not engaged.

It is very sad that it is a vacuum of leadership, because the law is clear that, under the Oil Pollution Act, when there is a spill, the President is responsible for directing the recovery, and the responsible party, in this case BP, is responsible for writing the check.

Now, for whatever reason, the President is allowing BP to still make decisions on the ground even though they have proven they are incompetent. Yet he is not doing his job. The President is not doing his job under the law. Now, if he doesn't like that law, he should try to repeal it, but in the meantime, he ought to follow the law.

You know, the gentleman is correct about not only the Governor but about the people, who all throughout the gulf coast are jumping up mad because they're seeing this kind of dysfunction, this lack of leadership from the President, every day in different ways, and there is no reason for it. The President is giving speeches, talking about how he is in charge, but any time anything goes wrong, you can't find anybody who is in charge. Nobody takes responsibility. Nobody wants to be held accountable. Yet nobody wants to actually help us solve the problem.

You were talking about food. Just Monday, I was in New Orleans. I ate at one of the great restaurants, Drago's, and I was eating my shrimp po-boy. The seafood is still great to eat. Unfortunately, a lot of the seafood beds are closed right now. There are still seafood beds open, and when you can find good seafood, it's still good to eat, and the shrimp po-boy I ate was wonderful. The problem, though, is with some of those seafood beds we've been trying to protect. Just weeks ago, some of those seafood beds had no oil. Today, oil is starting to come in.

That's what this whole barrier plan is about--protecting our marshes, our estuaries, and the pelican nesting areas. In some of the other areas that haven't been affected by oil, we are trying to keep the oil out, and so we've come up with a plan. Unfortunately, the Federal Government didn't have a plan. So you would think that they would be working with us to help us implement our plan. In fact, they've been fighting us. It took us over 3 weeks to get the President to finally approve the Governor's plan, but he only approved 25 percent of it. He spoke last week in his national address as if he'd approved the whole plan. There is still 75 percent of that sand barrier plan that has not been approved, so there are still a whole lot of seafood beds and marshes that haven't been protected.

Here we had at least 25 percent that we were working with to build up these barriers. Then yesterday the Federal Government comes and shuts it down. Again, this is something we fought for for over 3 weeks, and the Federal Government finally permitted. They were so successful, supposedly, that the President bragged about it on national TV. Then yesterday they just shut it down quietly, but we're not going to let this go by quietly because this is something that is their job, and they're not doing it.

That's exactly correct.

In fact, when the President came out with this ban--and he calls it a temporary pause--if they do what the President said he wanted to do, which is for 6 months to allow no drilling in the gulf, ultimately, those rigs, each of them, will lose about $1 million a day. They're being lured by other countries, countries that want these valuable assets and the skilled workers that go with them. Now some of them are starting to go to places like Brazil and West Africa. So, over the next couple of weeks, you will see a chipping away of not only the ability to generate natural resources in America, which provides billions--$6 billion by last estimates--of Federal revenues that will go away but of also the jobs. In Louisiana alone, it will be over 40,000 jobs that we will lose.

Just directly related to those rigs. Of course, you've got service industries, and you've got restaurants. You've got all of the secondary spending that goes along that you can't even calculate because it's so big. These are high-paying jobs. These are skilled jobs that will leave our country, and some of them are already starting to.

Ultimately, if you go back, the President is trying to say this is a fight between safety and jobs. Unfortunately, he probably--or maybe he hasn't even read the recommendations of his own scientists who came up with a report. Right after the explosion on the rig, they asked to have a panel of scientific experts, who were assembled by the President and by the Secretary of the Interior, put together a report. They asked for a 30-day report. Sure enough, this panel of scientists came back with

a 30-day report of specific recommendations to increase safety, to make sure you go and you inspect every rig. For the ones that are working, fine, like every other one is, and you allow them to do what they're doing. If there are any problems you find, you address those problems, but you don't shut down an entire industry because one company didn't follow the rules.

In fact, the Federal regulator, under President Obama, didn't enforce the laws that were on the books. The recommendation came back and said to look at these safety guidelines we're giving you, but don't shut the industry down. Well, the President conveniently discarded, threw away, the recommendations of the scientific panel, and he recommended the moratorium. They actually pointed out, No, we didn't. You're misstating what we said. They apologized for that, but they still went forward with this moratorium.

Then, just yesterday, a Federal judge in New Orleans said, You cannot have this moratorium because it's not based on fact; it's not based on science, and it doesn't help safety. In fact, it could decrease safety. Yet they still continue to ignore the fact that they are throwing away science and are trumping it with politics. They are playing politics with this decision, and they are still going to try to ignore now a ruling of a Federal judge and of their own scientific experts to run 40-plus thousand jobs in Louisiana and over 150,000 good, high-paying jobs in this country to foreign countries and are going to make us more dependent on Middle Eastern oil.

You know, if you look at what the President said in his speech last week, I and many others were angered by the fact that he spent almost as much time trying to exploit this crisis to promote his cap-and-trade energy tax as he did in talking about the oil spill and how we can battle the oil and keep it out of our marsh. In fact, if he just were doing his job and were focusing on what his responsibility is under the law, then he actually would be focusing exclusively on helping us battle the oil instead of, not only blocking our attempts on the ground, but of then diverting it and trying to exploit it to talk about this cap-and-trade energy tax.

Then you go into so many of the other things that are happening on the ground that are causing so much frustration for our local leaders, who should all be not only working with the government to battle the oil, but they should be empowered. They should be given ideas from Federal agencies.

Look, I'm for smaller government. Right now, we've got the largest government in the history of our country, but whether you're for bigger government or for smaller government, I think we should all be able to expect competent government. Clearly, we are not getting that now.

No. Another thing that needs to happen is you need to have a real clear command structure on the ground where decisions are made quickly and decisively; and if things go wrong, there are people you can hold accountable to go fix them. Not to sit around and point fingers, but to get things done. The problem that we continue to have-- and we're over 2 months into this now and there was no excuse for these kinds of delays 3 or 4 days after the rig exploded, but especially 2 months later, when everybody knows how important this is, how much national significance it has not only for the 11 lives lost, for the environmental damage, but now for the economic and energy security issues that are being raised, you would think that this would be the number one priority of this President and he would be focusing all of his resources.

And when local leaders have ideas like our local leaders have had ideas, the Federal Government is right there working with them saying, How do we get this done today instead of 3 weeks going by, fighting with the Federal Government to get approval for things that should have been approved on day one, if this was the top focus. And then where the Federal Government is even coming up with ideas.

I watched the movie ``Apollo 13,'' and it's an inspiring movie. It's one of those movies you watch if you really want to get your juices boiling. And

you can see what American ingenuity is all about. This was a case where the American spirit was alive and well and those NASA folks sat in that room and said, We're not leaving until we get our men back home safely. ``No'' was not going to be an answer and no excuse was going to be accepted. You don't have that same can-do spirit today by the Federal bureaucrats, who continue to block our attempts to protect our marsh, to keep the oil out of those seafood beds, to protect those pelicans and the other wildlife that are threatened every day, when we have ideas to protect them.

Again, if they've got a better idea, wonderful. We'd love to hear. Unfortunately, not only did they not have any ideas to help us, but they're spending their time blocking our attempts to save our marsh. And there's no excuse for that.

Mr. Speaker, I spent this last Friday on Grand Isle, South Louisiana, which is at the epicenter right now of this battle against the oil which is coming into our marsh. The anger and frustration I heard from official after official on the ground was that they are spending more time fighting the Federal Government and BP than they are fighting the oil. This is unacceptable.

It still goes on day after day, 57 days in, and the President continues to refuse to lead on this crisis. He has let BP be the gatekeeper for our local officials who have plans to protect our marsh. Yet they now have to go through BP instead of having the President have a real command structure that holds people accountable.

The latest plan by the President is to actually have this ban on offshore drilling that actually punishes everybody--people who haven't done anything wrong and who have much safer records than BP. Now, over 40,000 people are going to be put out of work by the President's arbitrary ban, which actually goes against the recommendations of his own scientific panel. So now he is placing politics in front of science.

When is the President going to meet his obligations under the law to lead and to be responsible for the disaster recovery with BP's paying the bill instead of allowing BP to call the shots on the ground?

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from New Orleans for yielding.

This is a sad time for those of us from south Louisiana. It's a sad time especially as we look at what's happening every day as more oil gushes into our marshland, our valuable, fragile ecosystem. But if there is anything that eclipses the sadness we're experiencing on the coast, it's the loss of those 11 lives, the 11 brave men who died on that Horizon rig, and the families that they left behind. So many of those young men left behind young children and wives who now have to cope with the loss and somehow find a way to move on.

So our prayers go out to those who lost their lives, and their families who are continuing to experience the tragedy that we're all so sorry for experiencing on the gulf coast. So it's a sad time for all of us on the gulf coast, but we want to give a special pause for those who lost their lives and the young children and spouses that they leave behind.

Mr. Speaker, it's been a month now, over a month, since oil has been spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon well explosion.

And now 2 weeks after our Governor submitted a request to the Federal Government for a plan that we put on the table to protect our marsh from oil coming in, we still have not heard one word from the President, 2 weeks after the request was made. This isn't something that BP can approve; this is something that only requires Federal approval and the Federal Government is standing in the way of our leaders on the ground protecting our marsh.

Where is the President? Does he not understand the magnitude of what is probably the worst environmental disaster in the country? And then we get mixed messages from his various Cabinet secretaries who come down and they say, looks like they are satisfied with the coordination going on.

They need to come down to New Orleans. The President needs to come down to New Orleans and actually help us and do his job.

We are tired of them talking like John Wayne and acting like Pee-wee Herman. It's time to step up.

I thank the gentleman from Indiana for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this bill dealing with professional education, but I just arrived from New Orleans and landed in D.C. a little while ago, and I am angry.

The people back in my State are very angry right now about what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico. We have got a crisis right now that is probably the largest environmental disaster in this Nation's history, and we are not getting the adequate response we need from this Federal Government.

Now, our governor for over 2 weeks has been asking for the Federal Government to approve a barrier plan to actually protect our marsh from the oil, and we are not getting an answer from the Federal Government. All we are getting is excuses. We have got letters from the Corps of Engineers and others that are saying they need to do studies, they need to look at the environmental impact. Well, the environmental impact is right there in our marsh. Here is a dead pelican from just the other day.

We have got oil coming up into our marshes in globs, thick globs, every single day, and we don't have one ounce of action from the President. Now, the law is very clear. The Oil Pollution Act says the President shall ensure effective and immediate removal of discharge. Instead, he is just pointing fingers at everybody. We know BP is responsible for this.

Madam Speaker, I understand we are talking about veterans issues, but right now we are talking about the livelihood of the people of the gulf coast whose livelihood is threatened, and all we are asking is the President to fulfill his duties under the law, which he is not doing.

We don't need a finger-pointer-in-chief. We need somebody who is going to step up to the plate and actually follow the law, take charge of this and stop not only the oil from flowing, but let our local leaders do what they said they need to do. And they have gotten no response from the White House. They are not getting the help they need.

The President has paid a lot of lip-service, but we have had oil coming into our marsh every day now for days. It has been going on for a month now, and all we see is ceding of power to BP. We know they are going to pay the cost, but the President under the law is responsible for actually taking charge. We need a quarterback on the field, like the law says the President is supposed to be. He is not supposed to be the commentator in the booth.

So all we are doing is saying we are tired of the excuses, Mr. President. It is time to live up to your obligation under the law. Help us protect our marsh. If you don't have a plan, we do, but you are not letting us implement our plan. Get out of our way and approve our plan. Otherwise, you come up with your own. But this is inexcusable.

I thank the gentleman from Indiana for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this bill dealing with professional education, but I just arrived from New Orleans and landed in D.C. a little while ago, and I am angry.

The people back in my State are very angry right now about what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico. We have got a crisis right now that is probably the largest environmental disaster in this Nation's history, and we are not getting the adequate response we need from this Federal Government.

Now, our governor for over 2 weeks has been asking for the Federal Government to approve a barrier plan to actually protect our marsh from the oil, and we are not getting an answer from the Federal Government. All we are getting is excuses. We have got letters from the Corps of Engineers and others that are saying they need to do studies, they need to look at the environmental impact. Well, the environmental impact is right there in our marsh. Here is a dead pelican from just the other day.

We have got oil coming up into our marshes in globs, thick globs, every single day, and we don't have one ounce of action from the President. Now, the law is very clear. The Oil Pollution Act says the President shall ensure effective and immediate removal of discharge. Instead, he is just pointing fingers at everybody. We know BP is responsible for this.

Madam Speaker, I understand we are talking about veterans issues, but right now we are talking about the livelihood of the people of the gulf coast whose livelihood is threatened, and all we are asking is the President to fulfill his duties under the law, which he is not doing.

We don't need a finger-pointer-in-chief. We need somebody who is going to step up to the plate and actually follow the law, take charge of this and stop not only the oil from flowing, but let our local leaders do what they said they need to do. And they have gotten no response from the White House. They are not getting the help they need.

The President has paid a lot of lip-service, but we have had oil coming into our marsh every day now for days. It has been going on for a month now, and all we see is ceding of power to BP. We know they are going to pay the cost, but the President under the law is responsible for actually taking charge. We need a quarterback on the field, like the law says the President is supposed to be. He is not supposed to be the commentator in the booth.

So all we are doing is saying we are tired of the excuses, Mr. President. It is time to live up to your obligation under the law. Help us protect our marsh. If you don't have a plan, we do, but you are not letting us implement our plan. Get out of our way and approve our plan. Otherwise, you come up with your own. But this is inexcusable.

I thank my colleague and the gentleman from Georgia, and I appreciate you bringing this issue to the forefront because what we're talking about here is responsibility.

And Speaker Pelosi, when she took the gavel 3\1/2\ years ago--she's been Speaker for 3\1/2\ years--and they talked about doing things differently. They laid out all kinds of promises. They bashed Republicans for being fiscally irresponsible. And yet all we've seen from Speaker Pelosi and her liberal lieutenants who are running this Congress is spending at unprecedented levels. This year a trillion and a half dollars. They're breaking records every day on deficit spending that is being dumped onto the backs of our children and our grandchildren, denying opportunity to the next generation.

And yet when you look at what families are doing across this country--these are tough economic times. People are looking to Washington saying, Where are the jobs? Why isn't Washington focused on creating jobs?

And we've come up with ideas and solutions that we've put on the table to create jobs, to cut taxes, things that have been proven to work to get the economy back on track, and every time we've been turned away. And yet when families are tightening their belts, they're pulling back. They're cutting their budgets.

Our States: in Louisiana, in my State, we've got a Governor right now, our Governor's cutting the budget to balance it. They're going to balance the budget this year even though it's tough economic times, like most States are doing. And like most families are doing. And Washington seems to be the only place where they not only don't get it, but at a time when everybody else is cutting back and tightening their belts to live within their means, Washington's spending out of control in record levels.

And now, as you pointed out, they haven't even brought a budget to this House floor for next year. No budget. Haven't even brought a budget. Now, we think they should bring a balanced budget. In fact, we've proposed a balanced budget. They haven't even brought a budget, any budget.

Maybe you'd say, well, maybe it's because Congress is so busy dealing with so many important issues and creating jobs and all of these other things. Unfortunately, that's not the case. They brought the government takeover of health care. They had time for that. Something that's going to run millions of jobs out of this country, billions of dollars in new taxes. They brought this cap-and-trade energy tax, a tax that would add thousands of dollars to every family's electricity bill.

Just look at today's agenda. My colleague from Georgia, as he points out, they haven't brought the budget. You say, well, maybe that's because there's

a lot of things on the agenda other than a budget that is so important. Let's look at some of the votes we took on the House floor today. We named a post office. We congratulated a basketball team. In fact, we even honored a courthouse. Honored a courthouse. That's what was on the agenda of the United States House of Representatives today.

And yet they haven't even brought a budget to this floor--not only a balanced budget like we think they should bring, but the President's budget--the only document that's sitting out there. The President's budget doubles the national debt in 5 years. Doubles it.

Now, we want to say rein in that spending. Rein it in. Stop this out- of-control spending.

They started last year with the stimulus bill, $787 billion of money that we don't have. But they said, Oh, it needs to happen so we don't exceed 8 percent unemployment. Well, today we're sitting at 9.9 percent unemployment. It just keeps going up. Millions more Americans have lost their jobs in the year and a half that President Obama has been President, Speaker Pelosi has been running the House, Harry Reid's running the Senate. They control all of government. And all you see is out-of-control spending, more lost jobs, and hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes. And you wonder why businesses in this country are afraid to hire or afraid to invest, why families are scared to death looking not only at their own pocketbooks, but more concerned with what Washington's doing to deny them, and especially our children and grandchildren, more opportunities.

So I think we need to keep this focus up. We need to address this problem. We need to balance our budget.

I yield back.

I thank the gentleman from Missouri. And this latest smoking gun that's come out is just yet one more example of why the American people are so angry about what happened with this government takeover of health care, with the way it was rammed through, with all the broken promises.

And you can go back to the very beginning when the President was a candidate. He said multiple times all of these hearings would be on C- SPAN so you could actually have transparency and find out what's going on. In fact, none of that transparency happened. None of those meetings were held on C-SPAN. And now we see this document that comes out conveniently just 2 weeks, 3 weeks after the vote that barely passed by three votes that confirms what we were saying, that this would actually raise the costs of health care for most American families at a time when we should be lowering the cost of health care, like our bill did that we filed that actually would have addressed the real problems in health care. But in fact their bill does the opposite, and now it's confirmed that.

What I really want to find out is when did the administration know about this report? Was this report produced by CMS, a Federal agency, before the vote and then covered up, literally held under wraps so that this couldn't become public until after the vote, when the American people would once again see that yet another promise by this administration on health

care was broken with their government takeover?

Mr. Speaker, we just got yet another smoking gun in this latest report by the Obama administration on this government takeover of health care. And the report confirms what many of us said: the bill actually increases spending over $300 billion.

With all the new taxes on medical devices, drugs, and insurance, it's going to increase the cost of health care for American families and small businesses. Over $575 billion in cuts to Medicare, they point out, will actually lead to reduced services for Medicare recipients, and in fact 50 percent of all Medicare Advantage participants will lose that health care that they like.

The American people are asking us and continue to say, Why isn't Congress focusing on creating jobs? Well, we should be, but Speaker Pelosi and her liberal lieutenants just want more government takeovers and more Wall Street bailouts. They are now trying to push this permanent bailout fund of Wall Street, and the American people continue to ask: Where are the jobs? The tone-deaf liberals running this Congress just don't get it.

I want to thank my friend and colleague from Missouri for leading this hour. And I know we've continued to have this conversation and talked about this months ago, back when the original bill came through to do the stimulus package and, you know, President Obama said that he's got to spend more money to get the economy back on track. And I know you're getting ready to talk about Henry Morgenthau, who was Treasury Secretary under Franklin Roosevelt. And he warned back then that spending and spending money and acquiring more debt doesn't get the economy back on track when you're growing the size of government. And it didn't work then and it's not working now.

But of course now we've got this bailout bill, this permanent bailout bill by Chairman Barney Frank, who, as you pointed out, was defending Fannie and Freddie when they helped create this mess, and Chris Dodd. And they've got this bill that creates a permanent bailout fund.

And then it also taxes a lot of our banks who didn't have anything to do with creating this problem in the first place. And, in fact, this bill not only will create this permanent bailout fund and will enshrine this whole concept of too big to fail, but it's going to hurt our local banks, the folks that actually played by the rules, that didn't do anything wrong. And now they're going to be at a disadvantage. It's going to be harder for them to give loans to our small businesses and middle class families who are trying to get by, because now they're going to actually create a two-tiered system that favors those big Wall Street fat cats that helped create this problem that are now permanently too big to fail and get a permanent bailout fund at the expense of our local banks who didn't do anything wrong and played by the rules. And so it's really frustrating when you see this bill moving through.

And they're trying to call it a reform. Really, all it does is it lets the SEC off the hook for their failures to actually do their jobs as regulators when they let Bernie Madoff off, and they had a Ponzi scheme similarly in south Louisiana by this guy called Stanford. Once again, a report just came out the other day that the SEC knew about this back in the 1990s and did nothing. And the SEC's been derelict in their responsibility so they're going to try to go create some new Federal agency to do the job that the SEC was supposed to do but didn't do. What we ought to do is hold those folks accountable, like the folks at SEC and the folks that propped up Fannie and Freddie that created this mess, instead of trying to blame somebody else and punishing our local banks who didn't do anything wrong, and now making it harder for them to give loans to our small businesses and middle class families.

And if my friend would yield.

You're too generous in your praise. I don't think it's much of being an economic whiz as it is being a student of history. And as you were saying, we've studied history. And you don't need to figure out and reinvent the wheel here.

Our country has cyclically gone through good times and bad. You know, sometimes we're up, sometimes we're down. A typical recession lasts about 18 months, and our country was in a recession, and it was starting to taper off. And we were in the sevens, 7\1/2\ percent unemployment, which was too high. But the President was saying, you've got to pass that $787 billion stimulus bill or else unemployment might go over 8 percent. Basically, they said unemployment won't go over 8 percent if you pass the bill. And of course we knew that wouldn't work because, as history shows us, it's never worked before. It's only created even more problems. And sure enough, just like history's always shown, and just as we predicted over a year ago, when they spent all of that money growing the size of the Federal Government, not creating jobs in the private sector, it actually created more problems to the point where unemployment is now hovering over 10 percent.

The frustrating thing about all of this, and of course there's a saying that if you don't learn from history, then you're doomed to repeat it. And it seems like we're repeating history now. But what's frustrating is, really, starting back in January of last year, over a year ago, what the American people said, what many of us here in Congress said back then was we need to be focusing on creating jobs and getting the economy back on track. And, in fact, there are tried-and- true ways of doing that that have been proven every time they've been tried. And one sure proven way of getting the economy going again is cutting taxes.

I know President Obama and Speaker Pelosi and her liberal lieutenants don't like the concept of cutting taxes. And, in fact, they have got a lot myths going around out there that cutting taxes are what created this problem instead of what we know created the problem, and that is like groups like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac giving loans to people who had no ability to pay.

But cutting taxes, if you go back in history, and you can go back to John F. Kennedy. You can go back to Ronald Reagan. When they cut taxes, Federal revenues grew because the economy got going again. People were spending money much wiser than government spends money, but they were spending money to create jobs. And jobs were being created, and the economy got going again because taxes were cut. And those tax cuts yielded in more revenues coming in to the government.

If the gentleman would yield?

History can teach us good lessons and bad lessons. There have been good things that have happened through our history and bad things. And clearly during the depression, that was a bad time in our Nation, but there were telltale signs and things that government did that made things worse that we should be learning from and, unfortunately, the folks running Congress right now haven't learned from.

But there's also good things that have happened over the years, just as when President Reagan cut taxes and you just saw this robust economy take off for over 20 years and job creation that no one's ever seen in the world. And yet that is another part of history that's not being followed that we ought to follow. And Congress, over its time, has spent more money than it's taken in, too, and that's another lessen to learn.

But I think what's so frustrating to people across the country, they want us to be focusing on creating jobs and getting the economy back on track, and that's something that I want us to focus on, too, but what they've seen is just the opposite--policies like this health care bill that's going to run jobs out and these other policies that you talked about.

And now this permanent bank bailout fund that's moving through Congress, it's a top priority of the President, and the American people are saying, once again, Enough already. We don't want any more bailouts. We didn't want the first one. We voted against that first bailout because we knew it would fail, and it failed. And so here the President is again not learning from history but repeating the mistakes of history by trying to create this permanent bailout fund establishing more of this concept of ``too big to fail.''

Mr. Speaker, President Obama will be speaking this week at the Kennedy Space Center. And while the President's budget cancels the Constellation program, it also jeopardizes NASA's Michoud facility, which is the premiere manufacturing facility with the unique capabilities and skilled workforce that can't just be rebuilt again once it's wound down.

The United States should not retreat from the space race. It not only threatens our national security, but it also makes us beholden to foreign countries. In fact, just last week a Japanese newspaper said, ``Once the leader in space development, the United States' space exploration policies are now drifting aimlessly.'' And they later went on to note that the clear winner from this retreat will be Russia.

Now, we should not cede our space exploration superiority to countries like Russia or anybody else. It jeopardizes our national security. It's a bad policy. The President needs to reconsider.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3125, the Radio Spectrum Inventory Act.

The most pressing issue that we're facing right now in the mobile wireless and Internet industries is the availability and use of spectrum, especially given the dramatic increases we're seeing in the use of wireless services. As wireless technologies continue to advance and more Americans use mobile devices for data-intensive purposes, the demand for spectrum will grow rapidly.

We're seeing every day with all of the new things that can be done just on a cell phone, not only running daily applications to help businesses, but we also can do more things in terms of downloading actual movies and getting direct access. You can look at things happening in real time, and, of course, this takes more spectrum. So additional spectrum will be needed, and that's why this Radio Spectrum Inventory Act will help promote and advance the effective and efficient use of the spectrum that's out there.

The first step, of course, must be to identify what spectrum is available and how the current spectrum is being used in an efficient manner, and this inventory act will do just that. It will require NTIA and the FCC to undertake a comprehensive survey of the Nation's spectrum and develop a full inventory. Taking this inventory is the only way we'll be able to know what spectrum can be located and what spectrum can be shared and used in a more efficient manner. We will then be able to decide the best ways to utilize that spectrum.

The convergence of mobile, wireless services, high-speed Internet access, and powerful handsets promise to transform almost all aspects of the way Americans work, learn, deliver services, and enhance our public safety. Congress should move expeditiously on this inventory legislation and avoid additional costs, and also unleash the potential and create more jobs in these industries that are out there innovating and helping people live in a better way of life.

So I encourage support of this bill. I thank the gentleman for bringing it.

Madam Speaker, I rise against this health care bill.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Utah for yielding.

And it is very interesting that those of us who came here to clean up this process are watching as the liberals that are running this Congress try to ram through a 2,407-page government takeover of health care without even allowing a vote here on the House floor. And maybe they really think that the American people will be fooled, but the American people will not be fooled.

And isn't it interesting that we are here right now debating this bill, H.R. 3644. It is a 15-page bill. We have a debate here on the House floor, and in a little while we are going to have a vote here on the House floor on this 15-page bill; yet Speaker Pelosi and her liberal attendants want to hide a vote on this 2,407-page bill.

They are running around this building; they are running all around town saying how great this bill is. They are talking about all the wonderful things in this bill. Well, if it is so wonderful, why are they actually trying to hide a vote on the bill?

What they are trying to hide, maybe, is all the sweetheart deals that are in this bill and the other subsequent language that they just filed a little while ago that people are still combing through and finding more sweetheart deals.

Maybe another thing they are trying to hide in this bill are all the budget gimmicks, the fact that there is 10 years of taxes in this bill with only 6 years of spending, and yet they want to say that it is going to reduce the deficits.

Anybody who thinks that this bill, this $1 trillion fiasco is going to reduce the deficit, obviously they didn't follow the Cash for Clunkers program that was supposed to last 6 months and ran out of money after about 2 weeks.

So here we are debating this 15-page bill and we are going to have a vote on this 15-page bill, and American people across the country are wondering right now what they are hiding in this 2,407-page bill that they are trying to avoid a vote on.

Again, maybe it is the $500 billion in new taxes in this bill that they are trying to hide, most of which would fall of the backs of middle class families and the job creators in this country.

I will tell you one bill that the American people would like us to be debating; not this 2,407-page bill, not this 15-page bill. The American people would like us to be debating a bill to create jobs in this country to actually get our economy back on track. And those of us on the Republican side have put many ideas on the table that would actually create jobs in this country, and they have all been pushed to the side because they want to try to sneak this bill through without a vote on the House floor.

So what other things are in here that they are trying to hide? What about the $500 billion in cuts to Medicare, including the virtual elimination of the Medicare Advantage program?

And I guess that leads us to something else they are trying to hide is all the broken promises that are in this bill, because the President said on multiple occasions, If you like what you have, you can keep it. The problem is, as the American people are finding out, there are multiple places in this bill that they take away the health care you like, including Medicare Advantage, which hundreds of thousands of seniors in Louisiana and all across the Nation like that plan, and yet it is taken away from them. And many small businesses will tell you the good health care that they provide to their employees, that their employees like, will be taken away.

And, even more importantly, doctors--and ask your family doctor. Many doctors across this country have said they are shutting down their practice if this 2,407-page monstrosity becomes law because they are not going to let a government bureaucrat interfere between the relationship of a doctor and patient.

So what else are they trying to hide? Let's talk about the broken promises again. You know, the President said multiple times all of this is going to be on C-SPAN. Now, if you are watching C-SPAN today, you are watching the debate on this 15-page bill. It is a good debate we are having on the 15-page bill, but you are not allowed a debate on the 2,407-page bill because it is not on C-SPAN.

In fact, right now while we are here on this House floor, Speaker Pelosi and her liberal attendants have been dispatched all throughout town to continue cutting sweetheart deals. Yes, they are actually still meeting right now cutting sweetheart deals. And what about that C-SPAN promise? Not one of those meetings is on C-SPAN, and yet it is going on right now and we don't see any of that.

And so the American people are watching this, and the American people are sick of this process; yet all I hear on the other side is, Oh, George Bush and those Republicans.

They are running everything now. President Obama is in the White House. They have got a 59-vote majority in the Senate. They have got over 250 votes here on this House floor and they only need 216, and yet they still think that they can get away with saying, Oh, it is those Republicans that are doing all of this. And yet they are trying to sneak through this 2,407-page bill while saying, Okay, it is okay to have a vote on 15 pages and it is okay to have a debate on 15 pages, but they want to hide a debate and hide a vote on 2,407 pages.

The American people are not going to stand for this process, and they are watching.

I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina for yielding.

You know, here we're talking, and this is about the only opportunity we're going to have for real debate on this because Speaker Pelosi and her liberal lieutenants have decided that they're going to try to ram this down the throats of the American people without even having an actual vote on the House floor, which, of course, violates Article I, section 7 of the Constitution. There are a tremendous number of constitutional questions about the bill, but they keep talking about how good their bill is.

Let's just look at their credibility on this issue. Of course when Speaker Pelosi got the gavel in 2006 and became Speaker, she said, The Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in history. Well, let's review the record. Of course, just a few weeks ago, Speaker Pelosi says, But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it. They don't even know what's in the bill. They won't even release the CBO score. There are rumors flying around. There are all these backdoor secret negotiations. They said all of this would be on C-SPAN. The President said it eight times. They're meeting behind closed doors this very minute cutting more sweetheart deals, and no C-SPAN cameras. They threw the public out of those hearings. They broke that pledge multiple times.

Now let's look at the latest on this Slaughter rule. Speaker Pelosi just said this the other day, But I like it because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill.

Now, do they really think the people of this country are stupid? Of course the people know what's going on. The people are watching this closely, and the people will not be fooled by this abomination of the process. But if their bill really was so good, why are they doing all of this behind closed doors?

They broke every promise they made along the way, but yet they want you to believe, Don't worry. It's still going to work out the way we want it. If you like what you have, you can keep it. We've seen multiple times where the President has said that, and that turned out not to be accurate. We know now--and it has been confirmed--that you will lose health care you have that you like under their bill. We have seen on abortion language, they keep saying even to this minute, Don't worry; no taxpayer funding for abortion.

Now, are you going to believe folks that broke every promise or are you going to believe the Catholic bishops and National Right to Life who confirm there is taxpayer funding for abortion?

I thank the gentlewoman.

I will finish it up with this. Are you going to believe the people who have broken every other promise they have made about the bill or are you going to believe the Catholic bishops and National Right to Life who said this would be a career-defining pro-abortion vote? That was National Right to Life. Do you believe them or do you believe the folks who broke every other promise and are meeting behind closed doors right now, cutting more sweetheart deals that they don't want anybody to see?

If their bill was so good, why are they trying to pass it without an actual vote? Because they know the American people are sick and tired of this proposal to have a government takeover of health care, and they don't want it. The public will be heard on this issue. We need to defeat this bill.