Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, today I rise to honor and acknowledge Michael and Marian Ilitch, entrepreneurs and pillars of the Michigan community, upon the 50th anniversary of the founding of Little Caesars.

On April 22, 1959 fifty years ago to the day, Mike and Marian opened the first Little Caesars in Garden City, Michigan, under the name Little Caesars Pizza Treat. From this one store, Little Caesars would grow to include a pizza empire of many thousands of restaurants through franchising. The company eventually became widely known for its famous catchphrase, ``Pizza! Pizza!'' which was introduced in 1979. The phrase refers to two pizzas being offered for the comparable price of a single pizza from competitors. In 1998, Little Caesars filled what was then the current largest pizza order, filling an order of 13,386 pizzas from the VF Corporation of Greensboro, NC. Today, Little Caesars is the largest carry-out pizza chain in the world.

Mike was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1929. He is a first generation American of Macedonian descent. A graduate of Cooley High School, Mike also served his country in the United States Marine Corps for four years. After returning home from the Marine Corps, Mike was offered a contract by the Detroit Tigers baseball team and went on to play three years in the minor leagues before he was forced to prematurely end his promising career due to injury. In 1954 Mike met Marian on a blind date arranged by his father. Marian was born and raised in Dearborn, Michigan, a daughter of Macedonian immigrants. They were married a year later.

Over the course of their lives together Mike and Marian have expanded their business and personal partnership very successfully. Today, the family's entities remain privately held. In 1999, the Ilitch's established Ilitch Holdings, Inc. to provide their various enterprises with professional and technical services. These enterprises include Little Caesars, the Detroit Red Wings, the Detroit Tigers, numerous property investments in and around Detroit, as well as the MotorCity Casino. They have been married for over 50 wonderful years and have seven children together: son Christopher Paul Ilitch (born June 1965) is CEO and President of Ilitch Holdings, Inc.; daughter Denise D. Ilitch (born November 1955) is an attorney and former co-President, with her brother, of Ilitch Holdings. Other children are Ronald ``Ron'' Tyrus Ilitch (born June 1957), Michael C. Ilitch, Jr., Lisa M. Ilitch Murray, Atanas Ilitch (born Thomas flitch) and Carole M. Ilitch Trepeck. Further, in Stanley Cup history, only 12 women have had their names engraved on the trophy including Marian and their three daughters.

The Ilitch family has also established a charitable foundation called Ilitch Charities for Children (ICC). Among other things, the ICC sponsors Little Caesars AAA Hockey Scholarship to encourage amateur sports. The ICC in 2009, so far, has given a total of $50,000 in grants to the Detroit Renaissance Foundation ($25,000) and the United Way of Southeastern Michigan ($25,000) for innovative community programs, demonstrating a broader scope for the charitable organization. Most recently, Ilitch Charities to present a total of $200,000 to benefit the Greening of Detroit's Conservation Leadership Corps and the Guidance Center's Project CEO.

Madam Speaker for 50 years Little Caesars has stood as a tribute to the hard work of Michael and Marian Ilitch and their family. As they celebrate this enormous milestone, they personify a legacy of excellence, ingenuity, and the irrepressible spirit of the American entrepreneur. Today, I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating the Ilitch's and recognizing their years of loyal service to our community and country.

Madam Chairman, from the G-20 summit in England to factories in France to the streets of our Nation, the economic crisis is causing and exacerbating societal chaos.

Now, the Democrats' $3.6 trillion budget, that spends too much, borrows too much, and taxes too much, will wreak the chaos of the financial institutions within our political institutions and, thereby, further the economic disorder within our midst.

Thus, let us remember what working Americans already know: Big Government does not stop chaos. Big Government is chaos. And we cannot build a stable economy on government spending.

I urge rejection of the Democrats' $3.6 trillion budget that spends too much, borrows too much, and taxes too much.

I thank the gentlelady. I will try to not use any words that anyone finds indecipherable or offensive.

One of the reasons that we are here today addressing this budget is tied directly, intellectually, to the Clue game that our colleague from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette) put forward.

In trying to find out who put into the stimulus bill the AIG bonuses, protections, and approvals, we are getting to the heart of what type of policy we can expect from this administration. Do we have an entrepreneurial, humane economy or do we continue to go with the too- big-to-fail model that has already failed and cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of their dollars? This AIG amendment clearly shows that the mistakes that were made last fall with the Wall Street bailout are being perpetuated today. We cannot have this.

The reason our economy is recessed is because of misfeasance and chaos within our financial institutions. Today, the budget that we have before us of $3.6 trillion sends the signal to the American people not just that it borrows too much, not just that it spends too much, not just that it taxes too much, but that the misfeasance and chaos, the collapse of the financial markets, is on the verge of collapsing our political institutions.

The dot.com bubble which hurt so many people was, as we know now, replaced with a housing bubble. This housing bubble has collapsed. This budget is an attempt to replace the housing bubble with a government bubble, a bubble in the trillions of dollars of taxpayers' money. And when the government bubble breaks, as inevitably it will, where will we be?

We have to get back to commonsense priorities, not only in our political institutions, but within our financial institutions. And one of the fundamental concepts has to be that responsibility will be encouraged and rewarded here, irresponsibility will not be.

So to see the situation in our country, a very dire one economically for so many, including those in my home State of Michigan who have experienced 12 percent unemployment, for them to see this institution believe it can simply spend trillions of dollars to get us out of this situation tells them that their government is on the verge of making chaotic, shortsighted, long-term, injurious decisions. And you can see this in their comments to my office, and I'm sure my colleagues can see this in their comments to you.

They want order, sanity, justice, equity restored not only to these financial institutions that failed but to the political institutions that are supposed to work for them. And yet as we watch proposals to go through to allow too-big-to-fail to continue to be the operative theory, we are on the verge of seeing the United States government too- big-to-succeed.

Big government does not stop chaos. Big government is chaos. And with the expansion in the trillions that is proposed today, we can talk about the items such as cap-and-tax that will hurt my blue collar and white collar people in the manufacturing industry; we can talk about how all those costs will be passed on to hard pressed consumers to shrink their family budgets for consumer goods that have had this tax added on and passed on or into their home energy prices at the very worst time for them; we can talk about abstract numbers and deficits. But let us be clear, the American people know that this is an irresponsible budget and that in a very chaotic time all it will do is increase the chaos around them that threatens their hearths at home.

We have to stand firm. We have to say ``no.'' We cannot borrow and spend our way out of prosperity. We cannot tax our way into prosperity, but we can do the opposite.

And I would encourage all Members of this caucus, this Congress, to remember one thing: our prosperity is from the private sector, not the public sector. The corporations are pass-throughs for taxes. They do not pay them. They collect them from you. And the more we allow the private sector, individual, hardworking men and women to have to pay more for the cost of government, the longer it is going to be before we can hand to our children the Nation's greatest economy on earth which we inherited and which today we have to preserve for them.

I thank the gentlelady for the time.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I too am shocked at the shock. When the stimulus bill came through the House, there were warnings from the minority party that we did not have time to read it, that we would find in that bill things that would be egregious and outrage the sensibilities of the American people.

But I will give credit where credit is due. It is, in fact, in this part a stimulus bill, for it stimulated the greed of the bonus babies at AIG because it protected and approved taxpayer-funded bonuses to that bailed-out company.

Facts are hard things to disprove. Every single Democrat in this House that voted for that bill voted to approve and protect those AIG bonuses. Every single Democrat in the Senate that voted for that stimulus bill, along with three Republican Senators, voted to approve and protect those AIG bonuses. The President of the United States signed into law the protection and approval of those AIG bonuses that they now find so repugnant now that the American people know what was done.

In my mind, this was part of a deliberate strategy to keep the employees at AIG who had broken the bank there to fix the mess that they had made. They knew that this Congress would not go alone with the executive bonuses being paid to bail out companies. They had to protect them with this amendment. It was dropped in in the dead of night.

If you are shocked, be shocked at the Members of your own party or administration that put it in and be shocked that we will now pass a bill of attainder that is unconstitutional to try to cover our, shall we say, tracks on this matter.

Here is the sad reality of where we are today. In a time of crisis, they passed the Wall Street bailout. The nightmarish prognostications of myself and others have been exceeded. Now what we find is an attempt to cover

one's tracks with another bill in a time of crisis that will leave no one, no one, safe from the hand of the taxman when the politicians come to cover their tracks at your expense.

The public deserves better. The public deserves transparency. We cannot fail them again.

Will the gentleman yield?

Through the Chair to the gentleman from Ohio, I was not

in the room that inserted the pro-AIG language into the stimulus.

I thank the gentleman.

Coming from the Great Lakes State, when I was younger I was always fascinated with the history of maritime travel in our beautiful homeland. And so when I was younger, I saw a book, it was called The Phantom Freighter, it was a Hardy Boys mystery, and I read it. I loved how they worked through to find the motivations and to finally unmask the culprit, and eventually I read the whole series. It has kind of rekindled in me today that sense of wonder at who and why something was done, and to work through the mystery to find out: Who could possibly be the hidden hand behind the mystery amendment?

I commend my colleague from Ohio for his search to cut through the fog of our times to find that hidden hand that wrote the mystery amendment, and I will do everything I can to help him with this search, as I trust members of the media will.

Look, in many ways, because this was in the stimulus bill, it has stimulated a lot of reportorial interest in who actually did this. I think that we can assume that if you can unmask the culprit, there may very well be a Pulitzer in it for someone for doing so. But when we look at this, in all seriousness, what we have seen is a classic example of a rush to judgment causing problems.

Now, as a matter of civics, since the subject was broached, when the stimulus bill came to this floor with this amendment inserted into it, it was voted upon by the Members of the House. Not one Republican voted for a stimulus bill with this amendment in it, which means that every Republican voted against approving and protecting AIG's bonuses.

On the Democratic side, every Democrat that voted for that stimulus bill voted for that amendment that approved and protected AIG's bonuses. The President of the United States signed the stimulus bill that included the amendment that approved and protected AIG's bonuses into law. And now that the public is aware of the AIG bonuses, we have seen another rush to misjudgment where we turn the Tax Code into a penal code, where we shred the Constitution to use it as a political fig leaf, and set a heinous precedent in the future for other people who may be disliked or disfavored given the political mood of the moment.

In fact, one of the things, whether you agree with the Constitutional analysis or not, is this: This bill still allows the bonus recipients to keep 10 percent of their bonuses, and it doesn't do a thing to prevent the $30 billion that has already been committed to AIG from being drawn upon. I think that if we were going to do anything today, it should have been to get 100 percent of those bonuses to the taxpayers and prevent another dime going to AIG in bailout money. That is just me and 90-some others of my colleagues.

When we look at where we are today with the resolution of inquiry that the gentleman from Ohio introduced, I think I can establish the motive behind the hidden hand that wrote the mystery amendment. I do not believe that this was a mistake. I do not believe that this was simply a matter of venality for a hometown constituency. I think this was an actual matter of economic policy by this administration. If I may explain.

We heard from Mr. Liddy of AIG yesterday that he was very much afraid of losing the people who had caused the problem at AIG before they had managed to fix it. He believed that if these individuals left, he would see a meltdown again of AIG, which he believes would help create economic chaos throughout America.

I believe that, in consultation with individuals from the United States Government and potentially the Federal Reserve Board, he made the determination that these bonuses, retention bonuses were necessary to keep those people at AIG, facilitating what he believes is an orderly unwinding of the mess.

When viewed in the light of having to keep the people who created the problem so they could fix it before they left, this amendment makes sense. This amendment makes sense as a matter of policy, because on January 28, CNN's Mary Snow reported that AIG was expected to receive hundreds of million dollars, at least, in bonuses. That is out in the public realm.

You see, the Senators put forward their amendment to preclude the very types of bonuses AIG received. If you are looking at this as a matter of economic policy, you say to yourself: The AIG bonuses that are coming down the pike are not public. You say to yourself: The politicians in Congress are

not going to allow this to happen because the public is going to be apoplectic.

You see the opportunity in the stimulus bill with $1 trillion of spending being rushed through in the dead of night. You say to yourself, ``Oh, oh, the Senators have already put forward an amendment to preclude such bonuses. We are going to have to remove it, and we are going to have to put something in its place to approve, protect, and grandfather the AIG bonuses so we do not lose the, quote/unquote talent that produced the problem and that has to fix it.'' It now makes perfect sense. But having established the motive, we have yet to establish the culprit.

The public is apoplectic, as I said earlier, because they do not believe that as a matter of economic policy this amendment is fair to them; that it is patently inequitable, and they do not want the people who caused the problem to benefit from being propped up courtesy of billions of dollars of taxpayer money.

Now, the response in Congress is not to look at the economic policy to make the determination that AIG is too big to fix, that it should be wound down immediately, that taxpayers should be protected. Instead, as I mentioned earlier, we saw a political fig leaf put forward.

The mood was also reminiscent of what I experienced as a young man watching a very important artsy film called Animal House. We all remember the scene where they are sitting around Delta House drinking beer, bemoaning their horrible grades at the midterm exams, and Dean Wormer walks in. Immediately the members of Delta House start to hide their beer under their seats and in the back, and the dean looks at them and says, ``You know, drinking is illegal in fraternities here at Favor College.''

When the public found out about this bonus to AIG executives, when they found out what this amendment allowed and was voted for by a majority of this Congress and signed into law by the President of the United States, you saw the political equivalent of Delta House hiding their beer so Dean Wormer would not be upset. In the event Dean Wormer was not fooled, and neither has been the American public, they want to see the situation resolved; they want all the money back in those bonuses; they want to prevent more money going to AIG; and, as the gentleman from Ohio has pointed out, they want to find out who the hidden hand behind the mystery amendment was.

We talk about transparency in government, we talk about accountability in government, and you are telling me that we can't even determine who put this amendment into a $1 trillion spending bill that was approved by this Democratic Congress and signed into law by the President of the United States. I would hope that this inquiry becomes a bipartisan cause in the interest of answering that question for the American people.

I yield back to the gentleman from Ohio.

Thank you. To the Chair, how much time is remaining?

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that we want to make clear about the resolution of inquiry that was drafted and introduced by the gentleman from Ohio is that it is an attempt to get an answer for the American people, and what we want to do is be fair both in providing them the answer and in terms of the people who could be the mysterious hidden hand behind this amendment. We want to get to the bottom of it. We do not want to rush to judgment and cast aspersions on others. We believe that this would be very fair to all involved, especially someone like Secretary Geithner, who no one has said was in the room, who himself has not said whether he was or wasn't. We do not want to prejudge the situation. We would like and welcome Democratic support for this, because we believe that in many ways, the Democratic majority was as blindsided by this amendment as was anybody else.

Of course, we warned that it might take time to read the bill that you vote on, but in the end I truly don't believe that the majority of Democrats in this body supported and approved and wanted to protect the AIG bonuses. We have to be fair about that.

But what they do have the opportunity to participate in now is to get behind the resolution of inquiry so they can show their constituents that they want a fair, orderly process to get the answer to the question of who was the hidden hand behind the mystery amendment. We also would like to have the support of members of the general public who could participate in this and put forward their own theories of who was the hidden hand. If they chose to do so, they can e-mail me at Thaddeus at republicanhousepolicy.com with their theories on potential motives for this mystery amendment and who they believe could be the hidden hand.

As we have seen throughout this process, someone did this. Now I can understand why no one is rushing up to accept the, quote, ``credit'' for this fine and noble amendment; but we need to know. Again, we welcome Democratic participation and public participation.

But we should not let this opportunity pass us by to get to the bottom of this because the worse thing to happen would be for this to recur. I don't think that is in the interest of the American people, and I don't think it is in the interest of anyone who was elected to serve them in this Chamber. We are sent here to vote on important matters of the day. We are sent here to make very important decisions as employees of the sovereign American people, and they deserve to know what we are voting on because they have to go home and account.

When they don't know what they are voting on, and in many ways get caught in an honest mistake supporting a larger issue while another issue festers beneath the surface, they will be called to account for something that they had no way of knowing. The vast majority of Members wanted to know what was in the bill, and they were not given the time to do so. That is unfortunate. But let's get to the bottom of the mystery of the hidden hand so Members will know what they are voting on when a bill comes to the floor.

One of the things that we have to take into account is the next problem can be avoided. That's why again we welcome Democratic participation and we welcome public participation in getting to the bottom of who was the hidden hand.

In voting today, we have also seen a spillover consequence of what happens when government reacts in a crisis. There is the old joke that is too unfortunately true, is that when in a crisis, government will throw your money at something and hope it goes away. We now have the corollary that when a political crisis happens that threaten politicians, they will rush to judgment and they will take money away as quickly as they can to solve it. We need to break that.

I come from Michigan. We have an 11.6 percent unemployment rate. My constituents cannot understand an economic policy that pays people to stay in their jobs, especially when those were the people who caused the problem that cost them their jobs in the first place by creating a global credit crisis that brought us to the precipice of a global depression. They cannot understand the sanity behind the logic of keeping people who were smart enough to break something, as if they were smart enough to fix it and rewarding them for it. They cannot understand how people who got rich causing the problem are now going to be overcompensated for fixing the problem that they caused.

What they want is for us to be responsible. What they want in a time of economic chaos is for their subservient government to help reestablish order and equity to our economy. They want us to help build institutional trust again within the financial community.

This amendment in front of us today did more to undercut the attempts to restore public confidence in financial institutions than anything I can think of because when you go home, the reason people do not want to put their hard-earned money out there is for fear of losing their job and seeing their nest egg become smaller. They do not have faith in public and financial institutions that are proven no longer to be too big to fail, that appear to be too big to fix, and they are also very concerned that the economic chaos and institutional disorder that has affected them so direly in these past months is now being replicated by their Federal Government, a government that spends a trillion dollars in a rush to judgment, a government that talks about a $3.6 trillion budget, that talks about trillion dollar tax increases. This is chaos to my constituents.

And now we add to that the fact that amidst all the talk of trillion dollars, trillion dollars borrowed, spent, trillion dollars taxed, they find out that no one in their government can tell them who wrote the amendment that let AIG executives receive bonuses. They deserve better than this. They deserve an answer because the first thing we have to do in the wake of this AIG bonus disaster is restore public confidence in the one institution they look to to help provide order and sanity and equity within their lives in times of chaos, and that is their Federal Government. Let us not fail them again.

I yield back to the gentleman from Ohio.

On your line of thought regarding the sanctity of contracts, in many ways we heard that these contracts here could not be voided, that the sanctity of contracts prevailed.

The reality is this amendment was necessary because the sanctity of contract ``ended'' when a company that would have gone bankrupt but for taxpayer money being injected to save it occurred. That is why this amendment was necessary for precisely the reasons you talk about.

When you look at the disparate treatment of auto workers who have to give up hard-earned, negotiated contractual benefits in exchange to show viability for taxpayer bridge loans, when you talk about responsible lenders having to foot the bill for people who have even lied on their mortgage applications to be bailed out while mortgage contracts are crammed down and rewritten, they cannot abide a company that says we have a sanctity of contract when the reality is there would have been no bonus, no contract if they had gone into bankruptcy. Again, as you have pointed out, but for the Federal taxpayers, the American people's hard-earned savings going in to bail that company out, a company that has not been asked to restructure but to wind down, those contracts were no longer void.

And it also shows the point that had this Congress known, both Republicans and Democrats, I believe, would have demanded that any further bridge-loan assistance to a company, a financial institution, had to have as an attachment, as a precondition, the preclusion of any executive compensation in the terms of a bonus.

Again, we were not allowed that opportunity because in the dead of night, this mystery amendment was offered by a hidden hand.

Mr. Speaker, picking up where the distinguished gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) left off, I, too, wish to address the subject of American International Group, also known as AIG.

As we have recently heard, having run the company into the ground and receiving a taxpayer bailout, roughly $173 billion, they are now going to give themselves $165 million in bonuses, the argument being that the contracts were entered into prior to the government bailout and, thus, darn the luck, their hands are tied. They will have to accept this money.

And yet I think of another instance where taxpayer funds have been used, one-tenth of the amount, within the auto industry, where, right now, the men and women, white-collar employees and the United Auto Workers' blue-collar workforce, are busy renegotiating contracts so they can earn less in order to justify continued taxpayer support of our domestic auto industry. Clearly they understand what is necessary to restructure and be viable for the future, even if the individuals at AIG do not.

What we are facing now is not only a crisis of confidence within our financial institutions, we are facing a crisis of confidence within our governmental institutions. As taxpayers watch hundreds of billions of their hard-earned dollars be spent on the very financial institutions that brought us to the precipice of a global depression, they now watch those individuals being rewarded with bonuses in amounts that no working family will ever see in a lifetime of sweat equity put into their professions and their careers.

And they feel that it is unjust, that it is wrong. And they wonder how much longer this can continue. The sovereign American people want to know when their representative government will end the bailout of people such as AIG and restore order to our financial markets and justice to the taxpayers of the United States.

Too often we forget the lessons of history, and so I would like to remind us of one. From 1832, when President Andrew Jackson confronted the Second Bank of the United States, he said, ``Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time, and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul the charter, I shall ruin 10,000 families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin. Should I let you go on, you will ruin 50,000 families, and that would be my sin.''

Toward the end of February we heard that the administration was in discussions with AIG to potentially reprivatize that institution, to have the government throw out their governing boards that have brought us to this point, take control and break them up and sell them off. That would be in the best interests of the American people.

For the continuation of the theory that a necessary evil requires propping them up and allowing them to profit at taxpayer expense for the misfeasance that they have wrought would be unjust. Because, as Andrew Jackson also pointed out, there are no necessary evils in government.

It is time for the American people's representative government to take swift and decisive action, stop the bleeding of the taxpayers, put AIG out of our misery and help restore confidence and stability to America's financial markets.

Madam Speaker, today I rise to honor and acknowledge Sue Wilk upon receiving the Women of Westland's 2009 ATHENA Award. The ATHENA Award recognizes individuals who have attained and personified the highest level of professional excellence in their business or profession, have devoted time and energy to the community in a meaningful way, and have opened the door of leadership opportunity for women.

Throughout her distinguished career, Sue has been committed to her community. Mrs. Wilk serves as the Department Chair for School Social Workers for the Wayne-Westland Community School District, where she affords her students the means and opportunities to be successful by offering personal and academic guidance. As the first female social worker assigned to the William D. Ford Career-Technical Center, she focuses on providing encouragement to young women interested in pursuing careers in non-traditional and male dominated fields.

Sue's community service activities focus on assisting student groups, families, and the underprivileged, as evidenced by her position as Vice-President of the Monroe High School Band Boosters, involvement in the Family Resource Center in Wayne-Westland, and participation as a Bell Ringer for the Salvation Army. Mrs. Wilk has accrued numerous accolades for her service including a special recognition from Wayne County acknowledging her efforts on behalf of children. She was also named Ancillary Professional of the Year by Wayne County RESA, and listed as ``Who's Who Among American Teachers.''

Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in extending sincere congratulations to this year's ATHENA Award winner, Sue Wilk, for her dedication to professional excellence and passionate leadership in her community and country.

Madam Speaker, today I rise to honor and acknowledge Mrs. Jessie Wade, a long time Michigan resident and teacher, upon her 100th birthday.

Jessie Wade was born in Detroit, Michigan on March 6, 1909 to a large family of two brothers and three sisters. In 1926, she graduated from Southwestern High School and subsequently worked her way through college. Jessie attended Wayne University for two years and in 1931 graduated from Michigan State Normal College, currently known as Eastern Michigan University. In the midst of the Great Depression, Jessie struggled to find fulltime employment. Coming from a family of educators, Jessie devoted her life to Detroit-area students as a teacher with the Detroit Public Schools through World War II and until her retirement. Jessie married Starr Wade on April 7, 1931 at the Dearborn Inn and spent 49 wonderful years with him until his passing. Jessie and Starr were blessed with one daughter, Linda, who tragically passed away on November 3, 1945 leaving her three children in their care.

Jessie Wade is a life-long educator and a fulltime grandmother and great-grandmother to her three grandchildren and two great- grandchildren. Jessie has lived for the past twenty year in the Silver Village retirement community in Livonia, Michigan. She has been an active and founding member of Grosse Pointe Congregational Church. Although she had to give up driving at the age of 96, Jessie has remained a very independent and active member of her community.

Madam Speaker, admired by all who know her, Jessie Wade has enriched and inspired everyone she has touched throughout her life. As Jessie celebrates her 100th birthday today, I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating her on reaching this spectacular milestone and honoring Jessie for her loyal service to her community and the country.

Mr. Speaker, we live amid an inhumane economy. We need to look no further for proof than the unemployment figures released today from my home State of Michigan, an unemployment number that has climbed to 11.6 percent and has seen tens of thousands of my friends and neighbors lose their jobs.

As people know, Michigan is an automotive and manufacturing State. We get sicker quicker, and we heal more slowly in difficult times. But I encourage them to make no mistake, what happens in Michigan will happen in the rest of America. And we cannot let that continue.

One of the things that has caused the current crisis we are in is a theory. Many of us have heard it. Namely, it is the theory that some institutions are too big to fail. And yet, after the loss of millions of jobs and the expenditure of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, we find out that these institutions were, in fact, not too big to fail; they were too big to succeed.

Over the decades, this problem has arisen, and yet, if we look back over those same decades, there were voices of reason warning us that we should seek a more humane economy. And I quote one of those individuals:

``Even as the drive toward bigness (and) concentration . . . has reached heights never before dreamt of in the past, we have come suddenly to realize how heavy a price we have paid: in overcrowding and pollution of the atmosphere, and impersonality; in growth of organizations, particularly government, so large and powerful that individual effort and importance seem lost; and in loss of the values of nature and community and local diversity that found their nurture in the smaller towns and rural areas of America. And we can see . . . that the price has been too high. Bigness, loss of community, organizations and society grown far past the human scale--these are the besetting sins which threaten to paralyze our very capacity to act, or our ability to preserve the traditions and values of our past in a time of swirling, constant change.

``Therefore, the time has come when we must actively fight bigness and overconcentration, and seek instead to bring the engines of government, of technology, of the economy, fully under the control of our citizens, to recapture and reinforce the values of a more human time and place.

``It is not more bigness that should be our goal. We must attempt, rather, to bring people back to the warmth of community, to the worth of individual effort and responsibility, and of individuals working together as a community to better their lives and their children's future. It is the lesson that government can follow the leadership of private citizens; that men who are citizens in the full sense of the word need not belong to the government in order to benefit their community. And it is the lesson that if this country is to move ahead, it will not be by making everything bigger, not by piling all our people further on top of one another in huge cities, not by reducing the citizen to the role of passive consumer and recipient of the official vision, the official product.'' These were the words spoken on September 17, 1966 of the junior Senator from New York, Robert Francis Kennedy.

Today, as we seek a better world and a more humane economy, we should remember his words. For after trillions of dollars in potential government expenditures, the amassing and concentration of power in Washington, we can see that we are no better off, as the unemployment figures in Michigan portend. What we really have to do is realize that as the dot-com bubble was replaced by the housing bubble, we must not attempt to replace the housing bubble with a government bubble. For when that bubble bursts, what will be left?

What we need to do is seek a way to free the entrepreneurial spirit of the American people, to allow them, with their own hands and genius, to rebuild their lives, to rebuild and restore order, opportunity, and prosperity to our chaotic economy, and to preserve the cherished America we all call home. We will.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor and acknowledge the life of Mervin Williams upon his passing on February 7, 2009.

A highly decorated veteran of World War II, Mervin served in the 10th Mountain Division's 85th regiment alongside Senator Robert Dole. For his selfless service to America, Mervin received a Bronze Star for his heroism and two Purple Hearts.

After Mr. Williams' return to the United States to recover from shrapnel wounds he received defending our nation, he dedicated himself to improving the lives of his fellow veterans and our entire community. Mervin became engaged in many significant organizations including Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, Eagles, the Moose Lodge, and The Knights of Columbus.

Madam Speaker, Mervin Williams is remembered as an American hero who loved and served our country and community in war and peace. Today, as we bid him farewell, I ask my colleagues to join me in mourning his passing and honoring his life. In league with his comrades who wore America's colors, Mervin Williams was a good man who did great things for the cause of human freedom. We are all diminished by his loss; and inspired by his life.

You know, the Chamber is empty, the voting is over. But as regards to the stimulus bill that was in front of us today, I had a request from Greg, who lives in Milford in my district, if I could read a part of his letter to me regarding that bill.

``Dear Congressman McCotter, I spoke with you on WJR Friday morning. I couldn't get out everything I wanted to say because of my frustration. I would love to talk before Congress and the Senate. I would like to talk to them about the deplorable, reprehensible, and egregious waste they are considering with our tax dollars. I'm sorry this is long, but I want them to see what I see. And I want to ask them a few questions.

``You see, I just lost my job. The company I worked for is eliminating 700 sales positions nationwide, about 15 will be affected in Michigan.

``I would like to ask the Congress and Senate if they know what it's like to sit at the dinner table and tell your 11-year-old daughter that she can't get a school yearbook because we need the money to buy groceries. Do they know what it's like to see the tears in your wife's eyes when you tell her the conference call you were just on eliminated your position?

``Do they know what it feels like to tell your father-in-law that the daughter I married and promised to provide for that you just lost your job?

``Do they know what it feels like to return the shirts you just bought for work on clearance, because you really needed new shirts, and now you don't even have a job?

``Do they know that when I told my 7-year-old son we just had to make cuts, and he responded, `Can we still have our donut on Sunday morning before church?' That's all he said he wanted. I had to tell him we'd try our best.

``Do they know we've made sacrifices but you haven't?

``Do they know what it's like to speak with someone who was in tears over losing their job because they think they will lose their house? How about the always upbeat guy who sounded depressed that he could lose his house because he had just lost his job?

``Do they know what it's like to have another coworker lose their job and are worried their spouse's job could be next?

``Do they know how fearful it is to turn your heat down at night to 59 degrees and 65 in the day when your child is asthmatic and it can flare up from the cold?

``Do they know about the guy I just met whose entire company just took a 20-percent pay cut so they wouldn't have to lay off employees?

``Congressman McCotter, why doesn't the Senate have the guts to reject the pork spending portions of this bill and start over? Why don't you get off your ivory tower, pork barrel, earmarked, pet project behinds and do what we need you to do?''

And Greg finished, ``The wasteful spending they are considering is unconscionable to me. What jobs in the U.S. does that create?''

Earlier today we heard the Speaker ask Members of this body to remember the people at home and feel their hand upon theirs as they cast their vote upon this bill. I did not need to feel the hand upon mine. I felt their pain in my heart because I saw it every day in our Michigan neighborhood, our Michigan community.

And the reality was that the bill before us was a trillion-dollar mistake that will harm working families like Greg, deprive them of hope, and damage our already recessed economy.

So before today's vote, I called Greg and I talked to him. He was as set in his position as he was when he wrote me this letter. And Greg thanked me for voting against it. And the fundamental reason was this: I live in Lavonia, Michigan. I live with people who are suffering. And they sent me here to work for them to try to make things better.

And when I go home, after a vote, to my wife and children, I go home to the people who are suffering as well; and I will have to look them in the eye and tell them whether this trillion-dollar bill helped them or not. And with God as my witness, I will at least be able to tell them the truth that it will not.

And I will tell them that we will keep trying until we do right by them.

Madam Speaker, I stand today before the House to recognize an early resident of Redford Township. Mary Chmielewski will celebrate her 90th birthday this Sunday with a celebration for family and friends.

Mary was born on February 23, 1919 in Detroit. Her maiden name was Kwik, and she was one of ten children, all of whom, sadly, are now deceased except her sister Clara. She lived in Hamtramck, attended St. Florian's and worked as a bookkeeper during World War II. After World War II, she married Edward Chmielewski, who was a machinist. He was also of Hamtramck. They moved to Redford in 1951, and lived a long and happy life together in Redford, raising three children.

Sadly, Ed passed away in 2006, but Mary has continued, and she has been an example for us all.

She has three children, along with their spouses. She has six grandchildren and two great grandchildren. Mary is very active and enjoys church activities, gardening, sewing, and family gatherings. One of her great talents and joys is baking, and she is noted for her excellent pies.

Happy birthday, Mary.

Mr. Speaker, we in Michigan understand the need for timely action on a stimulus plan that can help create jobs. We have suffered long. We have suffered hard. We believe that the proper action of the Federal Government can play a temporary stimulative effect that helps us. But perhaps we are being finicky, because we do not merely want something, we want the right thing. And we know that, above all, working families cannot afford a $1 trillion mistake that does not help them keep their jobs, keep their homes and keep their hopes for the future.

Mr. Speaker, it is a great day for Michigan. Having grown up there, I first heard the name Dingell used in conjunction with the auto industry because the people in my neighborhood, whether they were blue collar, white collar or car dealers, knew that there was one person in this Congress who would always look out for them and that, as long as he was in this body, they would have a voice and a hope.

Today, we celebrate the fact that that voice has been in this Chamber longer than any other Member of the United States House. As someone from Michigan, I am eternally grateful, not only for his service to this institution but for his service to neighborhoods like mine throughout our entire State and our country.

As I have told you earlier, it is often said on the radio that mere greatness is fleeting but that goodness and greatness are timeless.

Chairman Dingell, with your service to this institution, to your beloved State of Michigan and to the country which you defended as a veteran, they will always consider your service timeless as will be their gratitude for it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Airline Flight Crew Technical Corrections Act. In 1993, Congress passed the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) which provided up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for employees to care for themselves or family members if the employee worked 1,250 hours (or 60 percent of a full time schedule for most 9-5 employees). Since then, the FMLA has provided many individuals and working families in my district and around the country an opportunity to provide for themselves and family members during medical emergencies.

As intended, the FMLA provides full-time workers unpaid leave in medical emergencies, however due to a United States District Court ruling, airline flight crew are largely ineligible to FMLA benefits. Specifically, the court created an insurmountable obstacle for flight crews by deciding flight attendants and pilots can only count in flight hours towards the 1,250 hours required to qualify for the FMLA benefits. Typically, flight time only accounts for a portion of flight crew's paid working hours. Between flights, airlines require flight attendants and pilots to spend numerous hours ``on call'' and away from their families. While airlines compensate flight crews for their time ``on call,'' under the FMLA flight crews remain ineligible to receive benefits.

This is blatantly unfair.

To correct this oversight and restore the original intent of the FMLA, Representative Tim Bishop introduced the Airline Flight Crew Technical Corrections Act. I commend Representative Bishop for his leadership and I am proud to join him in ensuring flight crews are not penalized for working in an industry which does not run on a 9-5 schedule.

If enacted, the Airline Flight Crew Technical Corrections Act will extend FMLA eligibility to airline flight crews who work 60 percent of a full time schedule at their airline. Importantly, upon enactment over 200,000 full-time flight crew personnel will be able to receive FMLA benefits. Thus, Mr. Speaker I urge the immediate passage of the Airline Flight Crew Technical Corrections Act.