Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to some of the speeches here tonight, and I thought I would take a little time to address some of the arguments. But first I would like to just welcome my friend from Wisconsin, Representative Duffy, who joins me here on the floor tonight.

I've been listening, first and foremost, to the discussion of tax loopholes, tax exemptions, deductions. Specifically, I heard a lot of talk about tax deductions for oil companies. Well, I'm glad that the gentleman from the other side raised that tonight because I was thinking, and before I got here in January, for the last 2 years, this House was controlled by Speaker Pelosi and the other side of the aisle. The Senate, down the way here, is controlled by the same party, and the White House, President Obama. Now, if my math is correct, that means that Democrats were in control of the House; they were in control of the Senate; and they were in control of the White House.

Now, Mr. Speaker, it puzzles me that they were in control of all of those parts of government, yet not once did they eliminate these subsidies that they're talking about. They had control of the last Congress, 2 years, and nothing was done. I guess they decided only this year that subsidies for U.S. businesses should be eliminated.

Well, I'm not sure why they didn't do anything about that in the last Congress, but I will say that I am pleased that they understand the House budget that we passed because in our House budget that we passed a few months ago, that's exactly what we voted to do. We voted for a framework that eliminates tax deductions, tax exemptions, credits, loopholes, whatever you want to call them. That's what our budget does. And in doing so, we're following some of the proposals put forth by the President's own debt commission, a debt commission that he has yet to follow; but they recommended some similar proposals.

What we do is we lower the top rate and eliminate a bunch of the deductions that, admittedly, upper income folks take. So we eliminate those. But at the same time, we lower the top rate so that we can be more competitive, and we can have a pro-growth, pro-jobs Tax Code. So what we end up with is a fairer, flatter Tax Code, one that encourages private sector job creation.

You might ask, Mr. Speaker, Well, then, why do you disagree with the President on this particular issue? Well, like I said, we're happy that he's decided to come our way and that he sees the light on tax reform and closing loopholes.

The reason the House leadership is opposed to the President's posture on this in the debt ceiling negotiations is because they want to have their cake and eat it too. The President wants to have his cake and eat it too on this issue. He wants to close all the loopholes, yes; and at the same time, he wants to raise taxes. So he wants to increase taxes two ways; whereas, his own debt commission and our House leadership want to reduce the top rate, close the loopholes so that we have a fairer, flatter, simpler, less complex tax system.

So here's the contrast: we agree on closing the loopholes, although we can't figure out what happened last Congress when the Democrats controlled the House, Senate, and White House and did nothing about it. We did something about it. We approved a budget that addresses precisely this issue. So I just wanted to clarify our position on that.

I see that my friend from Wisconsin would like to say a few words. Please join right in.

I just want to ask the gentleman, what will it take for folks here to start wondering why businesses are leaving the country? It seems as if they always want to point the finger to someone else or some third party, some external cause. Maybe we should think about the fact that the policies adopted by the Federal Government have an impact. Businesses react to policies passed in this Congress, in the Senate, and particularly to regulations drafted, promulgated by the administration.

At some point we have to say wait a minute. Businesses are leaving, taking their jobs elsewhere. Maybe, just maybe, they're doing it because we're running them off. We need to ask that question.

Back in my district, in the Second District of Arkansas, in Little Rock and the surrounding area, I like to say, we've got big job creators and small job creators, but the common denominator is they're job creators.

I don't ask that people like business or be in business or whatever. I just ask that they acknowledge that businesses create jobs. And if we run businesses off, if we adopt policies that curtail economic growth and chase businesses away to other countries, we're going to lose jobs. That's not hard to figure out.

I think ultimately the standard for me is: Am I doing things that make the United States more attractive to job creators or less attractive?

We want to be a country where job creators around the world and here say, America is where I want to do business. America is where I want to innovate. America is where I want to create. America is where I want to pursue technological advancement and create jobs. America is the only place to do business. America is the only place to create jobs. That's the America that I want to help create. I don't want to create an America that punishes job creators in such a way that they flee the country. And that's exactly, on many fronts, what we're doing.

I yield to the gentleman.

I appreciate the gentleman raising the issue of Medicare. I'd like to take a few minutes to talk about some of the things I've heard here on the floor tonight.

First of all, if you're just joining us, I can just tell you that a little earlier tonight here on the floor there was a poster being used and the poster showed a tombstone. It showed a tombstone, and it said, ``Medicare.'' And the implication was that Medicare was going to be killed; Medicare was going to be eliminated. And nothing could be further from the truth if we take action to save Medicare. If we allow Medicare to continue as it currently is with no changes, it goes bankrupt in anywhere from 5 to 10 years, if we do nothing.

Now, some of us have done something to save Medicare. What did we do? Well, we came up with a plan as part of our budget in the House to save Medicare for future generations.

Now, what other plans are out there? Right now, none. The Senate doesn't have a budget. The Senate doesn't have a plan to save Medicare. The President's budget doubles the debt in 5 years, triples it in 10 years, doesn't even deal with entitlements.

It got zero votes in the U.S. Senate and does nothing to save Medicare. In fact, it was so silent on Medicare and entitlements that the President had to come and give a Mulligan speech after we proposed our budget in the House. He gave a speech saying, Well, what I really meant was, and he laid out some ideas, not enough specifics--so few specifics, in fact, that the Congressional Budget Office said, We can't analyze that speech; we can't score that speech, not enough specifics.

So the Senate doesn't have a plan to save it. The President doesn't have a plan to save Medicare. We have a plan to save Medicare.

So what has happened? What has happened is the folks on the other side of the aisle made a conscious decision to attack our plan to save Medicare, and by doing so they engaged in a fiscal fantasy. What does that mean? Well, it means that they compare our reform with the way things are now with Medicare. They say, You're ending Medicare as we know it. Well, the problem with that is Medicare as we know it, on the path that it's currently on, goes bankrupt.

It would be one thing if they were comparing their reform plan to save Medicare with our reform plan to save Medicare, but they're not because they don't have a plan. So they prefer to compare our plan with the way things are now, even though they know the way things are now is going away. In fact, I'd like to read just a couple of quick quotes here.

President Obama has said: ``If you look at the numbers, Medicare in particular will run out of money and we will not be able to sustain that program no matter how much taxes go up. I mean, it's not an option for us to just sit by and do nothing.''

Now, that's President Obama acknowledging that Medicare is going bankrupt, acknowledging that we must do something to save it, yet he hasn't proposed a plan to save it.

And another quick quote, Senator Lieberman, former Vice Presidential candidate nominee for the Democrat Party, now an Independent, he said: ``The truth is that we cannot save Medicare as we know it. We can save Medicare only if we change it.''

That is the hard reality, and that is what we are trying to do is save Medicare. And that is precisely what we did in our budget that we adopted this year. If you're 55 or over, there's no change. If you're under 55, you would be in the new program, as Medicare would be constituted, what we call Premium Support. If you're 55 and over, as

the gentleman said, there are no changes to you. We give folks time to transition to a new way of living under Medicare, a different kind of Medicare, but what we think would be more effective at reducing cost by putting in some market forces and saving Medicare for future generations.

I yield to the gentleman.

Just real quickly I wanted to point out, just to clarify, I totally agree that he has a plan. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a plan to save Medicare. He only has the plan that he passed in his health care law. And as you pointed out, with the cuts that were in the President's health care law, President Obama's health care law ended Medicare as we know it, because it took $500 billion out and introduced this unelected board, the IPAB that you so eloquently describe.

So I just wanted to clarify, he has a plan. He doesn't have a plan to save Medicare.

When I look at those charts, I ask myself: How big does our debt have to get before the other side of the aisle joins us in getting our fiscal house in order? How big? It is $14 trillion now--$16 trillion, $20 trillion, $50 trillion? How big does it have to get before the other side of the aisle admits that we are spending too much money?

I will tell you, I have been studying some of the details of our budget and how we got into this mess. I would be remiss if I did not comment on something I heard earlier today. Someone said: Well, the Bush tax cuts created our debt. That's how we got into debt.

Completely untrue. I took a chart that showed our revenue year by year as a percentage of the economy. And after 9/11, certainly the economy slowed down and our revenues, our tax receipts decreased significantly. But I can tell you that by 2007, our tax receipts were back up to about 18.5 percent of GDP. In 2007, and that was before the meltdown of the housing market in 2008, but that was while we had the Bush tax cuts in place--18.5 percent.

Now, what is interesting, if you go back and look at the mid-1990s, there were some years that had a higher percentage of GDP for revenue, but there are several years that are below that. My point is whatever contribution tax rates have had on revenue, the primary driver of how much revenue we get a particular year is whether we are having economic growth. That is the primary driver. That is the primary determining factor of how much money comes into the coffers of the United States Government.

The idea that we got in this mess because we are somehow as Americans not taxed enough is ludicrous. All you have to do is look at the spending pattern and the trajectory of the debt that you just put up there. It follows the same path, revenue relatively steady over the decade at an average of 18 percent of GDP. And expenditures--spending-- off the charts, particularly in the last few years.

I just want to be real clear here, both parties are to blame. The Congress is to blame. The House is to blame, the Senate, the White House. There is plenty of blame to go around. There is plenty of blame to go around. That's not the issue. The issue is how we fix it. And we first have to recognize that we have a spending problem.

I just want to close by mentioning the discussion of the debt ceiling. What I would say to the President tonight is that this House has put forth a plan. We have a plan in the form of our budget. But we also have a plan in the form of our Cut, Cap, and Balance where we cut spending and we cap spending in the future and we move toward a balanced budget. We passed that here in the House the tonight. That's a plan. That's a plan that we can debate. We can discuss. The President can criticize. But what we haven't seen from the President is a plan. A plan of his that we can look at and study and that the American people can consider.

I would just ask the President to put his ideas out there. Come out of those rooms and put his ideas in public and let us analyze them and discuss them and let the American people examine for themselves.

Thank you, and I appreciate the gentleman joining me.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 10 p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, July 20, 2011, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to House Joint Resolution 68, which authorizes the President to continue military operations in Libya.

I appreciate all the policy arguments that I've heard here today. But the question for me is, is it illegal or not? If it's a question of law, then all of the arguments about making this group mad or not being a good ally, et cetera, those are very persuasive; but those are not legal arguments. Those don't change whether the actions in Libya are constitutional or legal. Those are policy arguments.

The President continues to be in violation of the War Powers resolution, which requires congressional approval for military action within 60 days of the initial use of our Armed Forces. That deadline expired long ago.

The President continues to involve the U.S. military in this illegal conflict and has continually ignored requests to gain congressional approval.

What's so hard, Mr. President, about coming to the House and consulting with the Congress? What's so hard about that? Other Presidents who may have had their doubts about the constitutionality of the War Powers resolution have still gone through the process to respect the people that are represented by this body.

Reportedly, the President ignored advice from his top lawyers at the Pentagon and the Justice Department who said that he no longer had the legal authority to continue military action without congressional authorization.

Furthermore, this is not a legal argument--but I think it's relevant--we're broke. The price tag of the military action in Libya has already cost the U.S. Government over $750 million. This resolution would authorize the President to continue military action in Libya for up to a year. That could result in billions of dollars of funding by the American taxpayer that we just can't afford.

We cannot spend precious taxpayer funds to support this military action while the President flouts the law and Constitution.

Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore

I thank the gentlelady from Alabama.

One of the ways that we in the House are focused on creating an environment so the private sector can create jobs is by pushing the President to do something about the pending trade agreements. There are three pending trade agreements: one with Panama, one with Colombia, and one with South Korea. And all three of them are just sitting there, sitting there while other countries are developing relationships and increasing exports to these countries.

Now, in January of last year President Obama said, ``If America sits on the sidelines while other Nations sign trade deals, we will lose the opportunity to create jobs on our shores.''

I couldn't agree more. The President recognized last year that we need to move quickly with regard to these agreements that will increase exports. Why? Because if we increase exports, we increase jobs. Some estimates say that if we pass these three trade agreements, that we will create hundreds of thousands of jobs. So it's not just important that we pass them. It's important that we pass them quickly.

Why? Well, I sat down this past week with the Ambassador from Colombia, and he was talking about how his country has greatly increased trade with Europe while they're waiting on the administration here in the United States to move on the agreement with their country so that we can increase our exports and do business more efficiently, create jobs in this country. He said, We're waiting. We're waiting for the administration to take action. We keep hearing, It's coming. It's coming. We're working on it. But he knows that those are just words. We need to get these trade deals passed and in place so that we can compete.

Right now, businesses from Europe are visiting South Korea, they're visiting Colombia, they're visiting Panama, and they're doing business. And

the problem that we have, even if we ultimately get these agreements passed--and I certainly hope we will--we will have lost valuable time. It's not like flipping a switch. When the agreements are passed, everything is equal. We're competing with Europe for the business of Colombia or Panama or South Korea. It's not that easy.

Why? Because while we are sitting on the sidelines waiting for these deals to be passed, the Europeans and others around the world are developing relationships. They're flying to these countries. They're meeting for lunch. They're touring their factories. They're exchanging business cards. They're signing contracts, all while we sit idly by, waiting on the President to do something.

The President talked about doing something on these deals last year. He recognized that if we don't do something, we're going to lose the ability to compete. But what has he done? Nothing. Talk is cheap, Mr. President. We are waiting on you to move these trade deals with Colombia, with South Korea, and with Panama. You want to do something that sends a signal to this country that you are serious about job creation, Mr. President? Then get those deals passed. Get those deals passed. Get out of the way of our businesses and let them compete with Europe and other countries around the world so that they can create jobs. We're ready in this House. We're ready. We will help you get them passed. Just join us, Mr. President.

I would just like to say there have been a lot of topics covered tonight, from Medicare to debt to energy. They all relate to jobs. Whether we're talking about reducing the regulatory burden, revising the Tax Code, passing trade agreements, working on energy development and becoming more energy independent, or paying down the debt, they all relate to job creation and making this a country where the private sector can create jobs.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Madam Chairman, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 1249, the America Invents Act, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Make no mistake, the America Invents Act is a jobs bills. At no cost to taxpayers, this legislation builds on what we as Americans do best: We innovate. Bolstering American innovation will create jobs at a time when we need it most.

The America Invents Act ends fee diversion and switches the U.S. to a first-inventor-to-file system. These changes will streamline the patent application process to help American innovators bring their inventions to market. Each new commercialized invention has the potential to create American jobs. This is a jobs bill.

A provision that I worked on included in the bill would make permanent the Patent and Trademark Office's ombudsman program for small business concerns. This program will provide support and services for independent inventors who may not have the resources to obtain legal counsel for guidance on obtaining a patent. This provision ensures that the small guys will always have a champion at the PTO to help them navigate the process.

In addition, the America Invents Act finally puts an end to fee diversion, a practice that has siphoned almost $1 billion in fees from the PTO over the past 20 years. Too many patent applications have sat untouched for years because the PTO does not have the resources it needs to review them in a timely manner. Ending fee diversion will expedite the review and unleash their potential to create American jobs.

This bill is endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council. I urge my colleagues to support this jobs bill.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to some of my friends here. We are going to spend some time talking tonight about the difficulty this country is having in terms of unemployment and job creation. We have got a big challenge ahead of us, and the Republicans here in the House have a lot of good ideas about how we can get this economy going, how we can take the regulatory burden off of small businesses, how we can reform the Tax Code for individuals and for businesses so we can be competitive.

I would like to yield to my friend from Illinois, Adam Kinzinger.

I thank the gentleman.

I hear a lot of folks who talk about the problem that we have economically, the debt problem, all of the many things that we have been trying to address here in the House, and I hear them say, well, if we can just get to where we need to be after the next Presidential election, after the next President, whoever that President is, after that President is sworn in in January of 2013, if we can just get to that point in time, then we can really address the problems.

That scares me because I don't think we can wait anywhere near that long. In fact, I think we are already living on borrowed time in terms of the crisis that this country is facing. We know for a fact President Clinton appointed a Medicare commission over a decade ago, a bipartisan Medicare commission.

Why did he do that? He did it because we had a problem then. We had a problem then in 1998, and we still have that problem now. We have a problem with the insolvency of Medicare. We have a problem with rising health care costs. We have a problem with our debt and the deficits that we run year after year after year. We have a problem with too much regulation--too much government regulation--which stifles job creation. We have a problem with our Tax Code. If you're talking about our business Tax Code and business taxes, we have a problem there. Why? Because it's hard to compete with other countries when you've got the highest corporate tax rate in the world.

It's not about whether you like big business or small business. It's about job creators. And our Tax Code discourages job creation. If you're talking about individual income tax, we've got a problem there, too. We've got one of the most complicated Tax Codes.

So what have we done about it here in the House? Well, on all of these counts we have acted. We have acted. And we've been passing legislation that addresses the jobs issue, our spending issue, Medicare, the Tax Code, overregulation. This is what we've been doing day in and day out since we got here.

And I would like to yield to some of my friends. Before I do, I would just like to say this: we're the only one with a plan. Where's the Senate's plan? Where's the President's plan?

So as we discuss here tonight, I just ask us all to think about where is the other plan that we can compare ours to. There's not one. In fact, a former Democratic National Committee chair who's running for Senate now in Virginia, Tim Kaine, said today, It's a pretty bad deal when the Senate hasn't even passed a budget. The U.S. Senate doesn't have a plan. The President doesn't have a plan. This House has a plan. And we're working hard every day to execute it and implement it.

I would like to yield now to the gentlelady from Washington.

Thank you.

Before I yield to my colleagues, I would like to just go through the plan that the House Republicans have put together that certainly includes addressing the debt, that certainly includes addressing our spending. It's a plan that we believe will help get us on the right fiscal path and help this country--the private sector--create jobs. There is much, much more to what we're trying to do here in the House to encourage private sector job creation, and I'd like to run through some of those.

As I indicated, certainly we need to deal with the debt. That's why we talk about reforming Medicare and saving Medicare for those on it and saving it for the next generation. We talk about that a lot because that directly relates to our debt, and we have to get our debt under control if we're going to have the type of job growth that we are accustomed to in this country: job growth based on technological advancement and innovation. So dealing with the debt is a critical component of encouraging private sector job creation.

Yet there are other parts to our plan, which include increasing energy development, maximizing energy production. We have passed numerous bills here in the House that will encourage drilling in the gulf and that will encourage drilling offshore so that we can create more jobs in energy production and become energy independent. It's not just a jobs issue. It's a national security issue.

There is also the issue of the Tax Code that I referred to earlier. We can't be competitive in this country if we don't reform the way we tax individuals and the way we tax businesses. Ultimately, when businesses decide to land somewhere, they look and they ask, Is that where I want to do business? Unfortunately, we have created an environment in this country that runs business off. We want businesses to look around the world and say, The United States is where I want to create jobs. That's the only place for me. In order to do that, we've got to make sure that we have rules in place that encourage private sector job creation.

I'd now like to yield to my colleague from Colorado.

Thank you to the gentleman from Colorado.

I now yield to the gentlelady from Alabama.

Thank you to the gentlelady from Alabama.

You know, when I think about where we are in this country in terms of unemployment and I think about what we can do to encourage job creation, it's clear to me that we can fix this problem. This is something that is possible.

Sometimes I feel like this administration's solution to the unemployment problem is to go around and beg the private sector to invest, to beg the private sector to create jobs. That doesn't work.

There's a reason that folks in the private sector who have money to invest are not investing. They're sitting on the sidelines. Why? Well, it's a lot like investing in your own family situation. You want to be careful with your money. You've got a certain amount of money to invest. You want to invest it in something that's safe. You want to invest it in something where there's certainty. You certainly don't want to take this money that you have, this limited amount of money, and just gamble it on something risky. You want to make sure that what you're putting your money into is going to pay dividends.

And so what you have is you have a lot of businesses in this country who have money to invest but they're uncertain. We've heard that word ``uncertainty'' tonight. Well, it is not just a buzzword. It's a fact. When businesses don't know what's going to happen, job creators, when they don't know what's going to happen, they hold on to that money and they say, Well, I better wait; I better wait until I know how things, with more certainty, how things are going to shake out.

There's certainly always going to be some sort of uncertainty. Are the crops going to get rain? Well, that's not something we have control over. But some types of certainty and uncertainty we do have a control over, and it directly relates to policy.

And I think the debt is directly related to the issue of certainty or uncertainty. If you are an investor and you want to build a new plant, create a new business, do something that would result in job creation, whether you are from outside this country or here in the United States, you are thinking about investing, you look at the nervousness in the market, you look at the debt that we have, you think about the housing collapse in September 2008, and you sort of think to yourself, You know, this debt makes me nervous. I'm not sure where this is going. And they look and say, Is the government of the United States, led by the President, are they going to get their fiscal house in order so that if I invest, it's a safe bet? So if I invest, I can be certain that I'm investing in a country where the government has got their act together? Or am I looking to invest in a country that's going to just continue to raise that debt ceiling, see no limit?

I actually was in the Judiciary Committee a couple of weeks ago, and one of my colleagues on the other side made the argument that we just haven't spent enough money. If we only would spend another trillion or so, we might have some economic activity. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. And I said to myself, How high does unemployment have to go? How high does the debt have to go before we realize that we've got to get the spending under control?

I yield to the gentlelady from Washington.

Thank you. You make some good points about health care. And one of the things that we have pursued here in the House is medical liability reform. And when we were meeting with the President at the White House, a little over a week ago, someone raised the issue of medical liability reform. He said, well, I'm for that. I'm for that.

It's one thing to say you're for it. It's another thing to advocate for this sort of legislation. We're going to send it over to the Senate from here in the House, and we need the President to get engaged on this issue.

Medical liability reform is one of many solutions, market-based solutions, that can help reduce the health care costs. And it's not enough for the President to say, well, I'm for that.

The President said in the State of the Union on the issue of business taxes, he understands that we're at a competitive disadvantage. He says he does. He says he would like to see us be more competitive with regard to business taxes. But no action, nothing, no leadership on the issue of business taxes.

If he wants to talk about competitiveness, let's talk about competitiveness. Let's talk about having a tax structure that welcomes job creators, not repels them.

If you want to talk about competitiveness, let's talk about trade agreements. On January 27 of 2010, President Obama said, ``If America sits on the sidelines while other nations sign trade deals, we will lose the opportunity to create jobs on our shores.''

Mr. President, opportunity lost. We've been waiting. We've got three free trade agreements just sitting on the shelf, one with Colombia, one with Panama and one with South Korea. And the estimates are that these trade agreements, if they were implemented, would increase U.S. exports by more than $10 billion. I've got to think that $10 billion in increased exports would equal some jobs. But no action from the President.

I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

You make a good point. It's not just happenstance when a country has a good manufacturing base. You don't just happen to have job creation. It's a function of policies. It's a function of the policies that we adopt in the Congress, or that we don't adopt.

For example, we haven't reformed our business taxes in years. While other countries are making themselves more competitive, we're sitting on our hands. It's not happenstance.

I want to be so attractive in this country to job creators that manufacturers in other countries want to come here. I want manufacturers around the world to want to be in this country. And the manufacturers that we might have lost, I want them to say, hey,

they've changed their tune. I'm going back home. I want businesses, job creators around the world to say, that's the country where I want to create jobs because it's the best place to do business.

And we, the policies that we adopt here, the regulations that the administration puts forth, it all has an impact. It's not happenstance. It's by design. So we need to make sure that we're doing the things here that encourage the private sector job growth.

I thank the gentlelady.

I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Colonel James Summers on his retirement from the Arkansas Air National Guard. Col. Summers served as the Commander of the 189th Airlift Wing in the Arkansas Air National Guard at Little Rock Air Force Base in Little Rock, Arkansas from November of 2007 until his retirement on March 15, 2011.

Col. Summers joined the Armed Forces as a Marine Officer in 1979. During his time in the Marine Corps, he served as a flight line division officer for the Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 268, a United States Marine Corps helicopter squadron consisting of CH-46E Sea Knight transport helicopters. After his release from the Marine Corps in 1985, Col. Summers was commissioned into the United States Coast Guard where he flew a variety of aircraft, including the C-130, on training and operational missions.

Col. Summers joined the Arkansas Air National Guard in 1991 as an instructor pilot for C-130Es in the 154th Training Squadron. Throughout his 20-year service in the Arkansas Air National Guard, Col. Summers has been a tremendous leader. His successor Col. Steve Eggensperger, who served under Col. Summers as the 189th's Operation Group Commander, stated that ``Col. Summers was truly the Top Gun Pilot of the 189th Airlift Wing. Not only did he have vast flying experience and great stick and rudder skills, but he was a decisive leader who was respected by everyone in Team Little Rock, active duty and guard alike.''

During the recent tragic and destructive storms in Arkansas, Col. Summers and other members of the Arkansas Air National Guard responded to the call of their communities to help with search and rescue, security, transportation, and road clearing. I thank Col. Summers for his hard work and leadership during this time when the Arkansas Air National Guard was seamlessly assisting with the needs of our State while also deploying Airmen overseas to support the war effort.

On behalf of all Arkansans, I thank Col. Summers for his service to our nation and to our great State. Col. Summers's leadership and experience were vital to the 189th Airlift Wing, and I know that he will be missed. I wish him and his family--his wife, Tina, and their three children Matt, Meredith, and Andrew--well in his retirement.

Thank you very much. I am glad to be able to join you here on the floor tonight to ultimately talk about jobs. I have heard some folks mention debt and some other issues, but it all relates to jobs.

I hear folks from the other side of the aisle say, when are you going to have a jobs bill? And what I try to convey to my constituents and to my colleagues here is that when we are talking about the debt and getting our spending under control, we are talking about jobs.

This country has not seen job loss like we will see if we have a debt crisis. And if we want to be the country like many of us grew up in, a country that is innovative and leads the world in technology and advancement, then we have to deal with our crushing debt.

What has been striking on the issue of the debt here tonight is I have been listening to colleagues from the other side of the aisle and I have heard about all these plans. I have heard about plans to pay down the debt, plans to deal with the deficit. I have heard about their Medicare plan.

The bottom line is, they don't have a plan. This President, in the Senate controlled by Senator Reid, they don't have a plan. They don't have a plan for Medicare, they don't have a plan in the form of a budget, they don't have a plan to get the debt under control, they don't have a plan. Their only plan is to let the House lead.

They will let us be bold while they are politically timid. They have no plan. It would be easy to have a debate between our plan and their plan, but they don't have a plan.

So we are left with a situation, for example, on Medicare, something that we want to preserve, something that is a big driver of our debt. On the issue of Medicare, the other side of the aisle likes to compare our plan, which reforms and saves Medicare, they like to compare our plan to the current plan.

Well, that's fiscal fantasy, folks. Why? Because the current plan goes away. The status quo goes bankrupt. So the idea that they can adopt the current plan status quo as their plan is nonsense; it's nonsense. We see it with Medicare; we see it with the debt.

I, like my colleagues here, simply call on the Democrats and the President to propose something, something that we can discuss, something that addresses our problems. I can tell you, I can only speak for me and my constituents, but unless we see some serious structural changes to the spending, the out-of-control spending in this town, the ``no'' that I voted on raising the debt limit tonight will be the same ``no'' over and over again until this President and the Senate get their act together and give us a real plan.

You make a good point. I tell you, the stark contrast between what we are talking about here and from what I hear on the other side of the aisle is this: our colleagues, our Democrat colleagues talk about the government creating jobs. They say we need to create jobs.

I understand, and I think we understand that the private sector creates jobs. Small businesses create jobs. Individuals create jobs. People pursuing their dreams and exercising economic freedom, that's who creates jobs.

It's our job to help create an environment where individuals and businesses can flourish and continue to lead the world. It is not the government's job to create jobs. We are here to create an environment for businesses and individuals and small businesses so they can flourish.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that my name be removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 1380.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment. The U.S. has been detaining individuals pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force which was passed by Congress, signed into law. We have been detaining those individuals for almost 10 years now. The U.S. Supreme Court has accepted that the AUMF provides the authority to detain these individuals. Congress, however, has never explicitly recognized this detention authority.

In a March 13, 2009 memo, the President stated that he has the authority to detain persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist acts that occurred on 9/11, and persons who harbored those responsible. It also stated that the President has the authority to detain persons who were part of or substantially supported the Taliban, al Qaeda, or associated forces.

The affirmation from Congress that section 1034 provides is essential to supporting the President's own interpretation of his detention authority, and will clarify for the courts the legal authority for the detention of these individuals. Congress has been silent for nearly 10 years, silent for too long on specifying the President's authority to detain these individuals.

Congress has left it to the courts to make wartime policy. The military relies on the same interpretation when deciding whom it can lawfully target or detain, and the military deserves a clear and concise interpretation from Congress. It is time that we give them this clear interpretation.

I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing this amendment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the American people for watching today.

I wanted to talk with my colleagues here today about jobs, how we create jobs in America, and what we are going to do about our national debt. We have a spending problem in America, and we have heard a lot from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. They have been talking about jobs bills. I heard someone say that we haven't passed any legislation or taken up any legislation in this House that addresses jobs. Well, that puzzles me. Maybe they have been absent, but it seems to me since I arrived here in January, we have been focused on jobs, and I just want to give a few examples.

Number one, this week we have been working on energy legislation that will open up drilling, open up drilling in parts of the country where right now it is prohibited. Those will be jobs. Those are jobs, good- paying jobs in the energy sector. Not only will that allow for the creation of jobs; it will allow for our country to be more energy independent.

We have taken up all sorts of legislation regarding health care since I have been here. We voted to repeal and to work on some legislation to replace the Obama health care law. Well, I talk to small businesses, business owners, all the time, and they tell me that the Obama health care law hurts them; that because of the increased price that they have to pay, that they can't hire as many people. That is a piece of legislation that directly addresses job creation.

There was a provision that a lot of small businesses will tell you about; it was a 1099 provision that was included in the Obama health care law. We repealed that. We were fortunate enough to convince the Senate to pass it and the President to sign it.

I am joined by my colleague from Indiana. I want to say this, and then I am going to turn it over to him. Every time that we deal with our spending problem in this House, every time that we deal with our debt problem and our deficit, every time that we try to get

our fiscal house in order and make this government live within its means, the way folks back in Arkansas do, where they live within a budget, every time we do that we are creating a better environment in this country for job creation.

So don't let anyone tell you that there is the issue of the spending and the debt and then there is the issue of the jobs. They are all one issue. They are all one. If we want to see the kind of innovation and job creation that we are accustomed to in this country, if we want to see it continue, if we want to continue to be the leader in innovation and technological advancement and job creation, we better deal with our spending problem, or we are not going to see that kind of job creation.

Furthermore, if we don't deal with the debt, and we have a debt crisis, we are going to see job losses that will make what happened in September of 2008 pale in comparison.

I want to yield to my colleague from Indiana.

I thank the gentleman from Indiana.

I was thinking about some of what I heard, Mr. Speaker, a few minutes ago. I think that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle believe that if you leave the lid on a full cookie jar, that means you're out of cookies. I would say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, just because we have banned drilling and exploration for natural gas and for oil on the east coast and the west coast and Alaska and the gulf, just because we've banned it doesn't mean we're out of it. Just because you leave the top on the cookie jar doesn't mean you have run out of cookies.

You have got to actually take specific steps to develop energy. We are an energy-rich Nation. I happen to believe in an all-of-the-above policy. I think we ought to be pursuing renewable energy, wind, and solar. But at the same time we ought to be pursuing natural resources that we can use right now. Natural gas. We have a lot of it in Arkansas, and we would love to continue developing it. It's interesting to me that at a time when this administration put obstacles up to energy development in the gulf and elsewhere around the United States that would help us be more energy independent, at the same time they were encouraging energy production in foreign countries. It makes no sense.

I now yield to my friend from Indiana, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the gentleman's comments.

My colleague from Indiana was just talking about competitiveness. The question is, How do we compete? What is competitiveness? Well, we have to start with the premise that the private sector is the primary job creator in this country. They're not just the primary job creator-- they're the primary innovator. They are the primary source of technological advancement. And that leads to jobs. So the question is, Do we want businesses to be attracted to our country or do we want them to flee our country? That's the question.

That's the question of competitiveness. I want to live in an America that is attractive to job creators.

You can talk about big business; can you talk about small business, you can talk about mom-and-pop shops. You don't even have to define each size business; they're all job creators. We've got in my district, the Second District of Arkansas, we've got all sorts of job creators. And I love them all equally. We've got small businesses, we've got Hewlett Packard, we've got Caterpillar. They all create jobs. When businesses look for a home somewhere on this planet, we want them to look at the United States and say, That's where I want to do business. I can do better there. My labor will be rewarded there. The taxes are not so burdensome there. The regulations don't crush my business there. That's where opportunity is. That's the America that we're trying to create.

The gentleman from Indiana referenced some of the conversations he has had with constituents. I have them every day. They come in my office and they say, This agency is not working with me; it's working against me. This part of government is an obstacle. Can you help me? Can you help me break through so that I can just do my business and create jobs and make a living?

That's ultimately the America that we're talking about.

Since we're talking about competitiveness and we're talking about jobs, that ultimately, as some of us were talking about earlier, leads us to a conversation about debt.

I would now yield to my friend and colleague from Arkansas (Mr. Womack).

Thank you to my colleague from Arkansas.

Mr. Speaker, my colleague makes a great point, and I think what we've been talking about here over the last few minutes is that the jobs issue is not separate from the debt issue. We have to deal with the debt in order to create an environment in this country that attracts business and where jobs can be created.

I want to take just a second here. We've heard a lot about Medicare and about the debt; and I think it's important to emphasize here, as this chart shows, that of our yearly spending, well over half is what we call mandatory spending. That is spending that doesn't have to be renewed every year, spending that's in the books, in the law. It just happens. That includes Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The bad news is, if we do nothing to this big chunk here called Medicare, we do nothing, Medicare goes bankrupt.

This next chart shows that in just a couple of decades, the entire Federal budget at this point right here, the entire Federal budget will be consumed by Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

What does all this tell us? Well, it tells us a couple of things. Number one, we have to do something to reform our system so that we don't have a crisis; and, number two, it tells us that if we don't reform Medicare, it goes away. It no longer exists.

I tell folks all the time when they say, well, you're going to try to end Medicare as we know it, and I say, whoa, whoa, whoa, Medicare as we know it ends itself in just a short number of years. It ends itself. And I say to my friends when they mention something like that, I say, well, if someone really wanted to harm Medicare, they wouldn't propose a bold reform to save it. They would just quietly do nothing because if you quietly do nothing, you kick the can a little further down the road, Medicare goes bankrupt. With no action, Medicare goes bankrupt.

What would that look like? Well, it would look a lot like the President's plan. I don't believe that the President wants to harm Medicare, but I'm certain that he's failed to take the steps necessary to save it. What would a plan look like that harms Medicare? It would look like the President's plan, a plan, a budget that doubles our debt in five and triples it in 10 and does nothing to save Medicare. It's silent on that and on Medicaid and on Social Security.

I would like to yield now to the gentleman from Arizona. Thank you for joining us.

Thank you so much to the gentleman from Arizona. I appreciate you making those clear points.

I want to go to the gentleman from Indiana who has risen.

Thank you for that. Thank you to the gentleman from Indiana.

I think the point that you're making is that we first have to identify the problem, and the problem is a spending problem. We don't have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. We are spending too much money. We have made promises that the government can't keep. Saying that we just need more revenue is like a gambler who's sitting at a slot machine, saying, ``I don't have a gambling problem. I just don't have enough money.'' We have a spending problem, folks, and that's why we have to talk about all of the different programs, and I have been one who has been willing to say we've got to look at everything at a time like this.

I want to yield to my friend from Illinois, but before I do, I want to point one thing out. You mentioned demagoguery. We're trying to responsibly address the spending problem in all parts of the budget, including Medicare, so I just want to run through a couple of attacks, a couple of misrepresentations that I've been hearing. Then I'd like to hear from my colleague from Illinois, but let me point this out.

The first thing that I heard was that our plan in the House is a voucher program, that premium support, which is the core of our Medicare reform for those under 55. For those 55 and over, there are no changes, but premium support is the core of those under 55. I stood here on the floor, and I said, This is a program much like the one Members of Congress have, much like the ones that Federal employees have. The gentleman from the other side of the aisle said, It's a voucher plan.

Is it or is it not? It's not a voucher plan, but you don't have to take my word for it.

What's interesting is that, back in 1999, President Clinton recognized that we had a Medicare problem, a spending problem within Medicare. So what did President Clinton do? He appointed a Medicare commission. Who led that commission? One of the co-chairs was a Democrat Senator from Louisiana, John Breaux. John Breaux was an advocate for something called ``premium support.''

So the plan that we're advocating, that we've passed in the House, was not created by a few in a back room last week or a couple of months ago. It's based on something that the Clinton Medicare commission discussed in 1999. I just want to point this out.

This is an excerpt from an op-ed written by Senator Breaux. He says, ``What exactly is a `premium support model,' and what does my particular version do? `Premium support' means the government would literally support or pay part of the premium for a defined core package of Medicare benefits.''

Look at this. This is the Democrat Senator, Clinton's co-chair of the Medicare commission. In 1999, he says, ``This is not a voucher program but an alternative to the current system. My plan combines the best that the private sector has to offer with the government protections we need to maintain the social safety net.''

It's pretty clear it's not a voucher program. No matter what you've heard, it's not a voucher program. I've said repeatedly that it's the type of plan that we have, and others have said, no, that's not true. Well, Senator Breaux thinks it's true. He says, ``I've proposed a premium support Medicare plan, modeled after the health care plan, serving nearly 10 million Federal workers, retirees and their families.'' So there is a lot of misinformation out there, and I ask folks to get the facts.

I would like to yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Would the gentleman yield for a question?

Would you agree with me that there is no way to address the debt issue without entitlement reform, and that entitlement reform must include Medicare?

I just want to point out that the gentleman from Illinois mentioned some of the nonsense, some of the attacks that the other side has been making on those of us who are trying to save Medicare and responsibly deal with the budget. The Union Leader newspaper took a look at some of the attacks and said, ``Ending Medicare''--the idea that we're trying to end it--``is a big scary lie.'' And PolitiFact, which is a Web site that takes a look at political attacks--it determines how much validity there is--it gave our colleagues on the other side, it gave their attacks the ``pants on fire'' rating--as in, ``liar, liar, pants on fire''--on their Truth-O- Meter. So there's a lot of misinformation out there.

I would like to now yield to my colleague from Pennsylvania.

Thank you very much for that.

I now yield to the lady from New York.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring everyone's attention to the extraordinarily destructive storms that have raged throughout the South and particularly in my home State of Arkansas. In my home State, we have seen flooding and tornado damage wreak havoc on local communities. We have seen the lives of our loved ones tragically taken before their time.

Last week, I personally surveyed the damage in central Arkansas in my district. In the little town of Vilonia, a town north of Little Rock, 70 homes were destroyed and an additional 50 were damaged. I toured Little Rock Air Force Base and saw the damage to structures there and the damage to our C-130s that are so important to our national security. In Hot Springs Village, I saw the damage left in the wake of the latest round of the storms that claimed the life of an 8-month-old boy there. He is one of the 22 Arkansans killed by the storms in April.

I ask my colleagues and all Americans listening today to keep the families affected by this tragedy in their thoughts and prayers.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, May 2, 2011, I missed the rollcall vote No. 278 for unavoidable reasons.

Specifically, my direct flight from Little Rock, Arkansas, to the Baltimore-Washington International Airport (BWI) that was scheduled to depart at 10:40 a.m. (CDT) and to arrive at 2:05 p.m. (EDT) was delayed due to mechanical failure for approximately four hours and did not arrive until 6:15 p.m. (EDT) at BWI. Because of this delay I did not arrive at the Capitol until after rollcall vote No. 278 had concluded.

I would have voted as follows: Rollcall vote No. 278: ``yea'' (H.R. 1423, to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 115 4th Avenue Southwest in Ardmore, Oklahoma, as the ``Specialist Micheal E. Phillips Post Office'').

Mr. Chairman, I would just like to say a few words about Medicare if I can. First and foremost, I want to make it very clear that if you are 55 and over, there are no changes to you whatsoever. We hear a lot about Medicare as we know it. Unfortunately, Medicare as we know it is going bankrupt. If you are for the status quo with regard to Medicare, you're on the side of the elimination of Medicare as we know it.

Another point I want to make is, we hear a lot about cuts. These are Washington cuts. This is Washington cut-speak. Where I'm from, if you get $5 on a Monday and the next day you get $10, that's an increase, not a cut. Most Americans would be appalled to know, Mr. Chairman, that the increases we are seeing are being called cuts. And I'm going to explain it to my folks when I get back to Arkansas. Medicare has not one penny of cuts in this budget. It continues to grow.

With regard to the language about vouchers, there is no voucher here. We're trying to give the folks that are 55 and under health care like Members of Congress have. Have you ever, Mr. Chairman, heard anyone in Congress describe their own health care plan as a voucher? No. Of course you haven't. Because it's not. That word has been rolled out with the other tested words, ``privatization,'' all this other nonsense, for the purposes of politics. You don't want the American people, Mr. Chairman, to have the same health care that you have.

I support this budget because it will keep our promise to seniors, it will save Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and it will preserve this country for my kids.

Madam Speaker, while we stand here debating the course of our fiscal future, brave men and women are in harm's way, taking the fight to our enemies around the world. Their families here at home are doing all they can to keep a brave face and keep their family going while their loved ones are abroad.

Sadly, because of the Senate's inaction, these families now face an even greater challenge. Unless the Senate changes course and listens to the American people, our U.S. military families will soon not receive their paychecks. From my home State of Arkansas, we have over 5,000 active duty servicemembers as well as 246 Army National Guardsmen deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. My district is home to Little Rock Air Force Base, where we have 5,500 airmen and over 15,000 military family members.

Think about this, ladies and gentlemen: the men and women facing our enemies every day don't know whether they will get paid. As the standard bearer for the free world, it is unacceptable and, really, just embarrassing that America can't pay its troops for their service. This is not the time for servicemembers and their families to worry about when the next check will arrive.

I support this bill.