Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to U.S. Army Sergeant Joshua M. Hardt of Applegate, California. He's one of the fallen heroes of the Battle of Kamdesh, that remote outpost that was besieged and surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered by more than 300 Taliban insurgents on October 3.

No soldiers in the history of our Nation have fought more valiantly or bravely than the defenders of Combat Outpost Keating on that day. In the end, they held their ground, they defended their flag and the honor of their country. But most importantly, they defended something that is fundamental and sacred and eternal, that defines humanity itself. They defended something that can never be abandoned as long as humanity exists. They defended right against wrong, good against evil, freedom against tyranny in its most stark and defining form.

During the terrible winter of 1776, Thomas Paine, having watched many brave young men like Josh Hardt fall in defense of these same eternal truths, offered these words to try to make some sense of it. He said, ``Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.''

Joshua Hardt knew that, and his family knew that. Through her tears, his mother told a local newspaper, ``He was a very giving son. He went into the Army wanting to make a difference . . . wanting us to be safe . . . He expressed his desire to do more, to take more action, and to make a difference. He didn't know a better way than to go into the military and to fight for everybody.''

And that's exactly what he did. He fought for his Nation, he fought for his Nation's values, and he fought for the freedom of a people half a world a way. And he paid for heaven's most expensive celestial article with his life, not for himself but for others.

I attended a Gold Star dinner recently, and I admitted to one the hosts that I still don't know what to say to the families. She said, well, just ask them about their sons.

So let me tell you a little bit about Josh Hardt. He was 24 years old. He's

remembered at Placer High School as an extraordinary athlete. He did his school so proud on the football field that they retired his helmet when he graduated. He was one of those big, hulking kids who stand up for whoever's being picked on.

I spoke with his wife and with his mother today and they both told me exactly the same thing: that he was first and foremost a family man, willing to do anything for his family and for his friends and for his country.

He joined the Army just 3 years ago. He'd already risen to the rank of sergeant and carried a chest of ribbons, including the Bronze Star. Perhaps the most eloquent testimonies to his service are the remembrances from younger soldiers that he'd taken under his wing to help. In fact, that was his next assignment, to come back to the States and help his returning comrades.

His football coach, Mark Sabins, remembered seeing him back home last year after the first tour of duty in Iraq and tells how excited he was to be marrying a remarkable young lady, Olivia, and how energized he was about his work in the Army and his plans for a family and how he looked forward to a full and promising life ahead.

Instead, Joshua Hardt will return home tomorrow for the last time. His family and friends will come to mourn him and to honor him and to remember him. His community will hold him up as an example of all that is heroic and virtuous. His Nation will record his name onto its most hallowed rolls that he never be forgotten.

Centuries from now, flags will be placed on his grave every year as future generations gather to consider the cost of their freedom. And perhaps in Kamdesh, Afghanistan, they will gather around a monument where Outpost Keating once stood and give thanks for the men who paid everything to purchase for them so celestial an article as freedom.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to address a matter of the health care debate that was brought up by none less than the President of the United States in this very Chamber just several weeks ago where he assured us that it was not going to add a penny to the deficit. I don't think we can fully appreciate the magnitude of the health care debate without also recognizing the magnitude of the Nation's deficit, and I'd have to call into question the accuracy of the President's assurances to this House several weeks ago.

I brought along a chart. This represents, both as a percentage of GDP as well as total dollars, our deficit over the past 40 years, from 1970 to 2010. As you can see, we've not done a very good job of managing our Nation's finances, except for 4 years during the Clinton administration. I might add, there was a Republican Congress, but give credit where credit's due. Bill Clinton produced 4 years of surplus budgets. We then go into the Bush years which was the most fiscally irresponsible that we've seen in peace time. The last budget deficit taking nearly 3 percent of the gross domestic product of our country.

That's this bar and this point right here.

Now, this red line, that red line is this year's budget deficit ending today, September 30. That's the full fiscal year deficit. You can see it's on a magnitude completely unprecedented in the history of our Nation.

Well, actually, fiscal 2008 was about $450 billion.

Bush added another 700 billion with the bailout which of course Obama supported. So he can't just blame Bush for that. He supported that bailout, adding another 700 billion. The point is today this year's budget deficit exceeds $1.6 trillion and that is absolutely catastrophic. We all know that if you live beyond your means today, of necessity, you're going to have to live below your means tomorrow and that's the tomorrow that we're creating for our country.

Exactly right. I mean, as we know----

Actually nearly four times more than last year's deficit.

He has dramatically increased that deficit beyond anything that we've seen in the peacetime history of our Nation.

We're just looking right now at what we've spent in fiscal 2008 and what we expect to spend by the end of midnight tonight. That's a nearly fourfold increase in a single year.

This is on the spending side, not on the tax side. In fact, the deficit is the difference between what we spend and what we take in. That's what we're talking about with the deficit. And that's four times larger than it was last year. And as I said, that is being taken out of the future economic prosperity of our country. That's being taken from our kids.

Now we have before us the health care measure which is nearly $1 trillion more. But we are told, don't worry, that won't add a dime to the deficit. Well, pardon my skepticism but----

This is the same President who recently announced that he'd underestimated the current deficit projection by $2 trillion. But he assures us this isn't going to add anything more, we're going to pay for it. Well, my problem with that is we've got plenty of experience with government health plans, both in this country and abroad. They've produced very consistent results. They've produced massive cost overruns, followed by an absolutely brutal rationing of care. Now, the point I wanted to make in coming down to the floor today is that when this health bill was considered by the House Committee on Labor and Education, I offered a simple amendment to take the President at his word, to take the Democrats at their word that this is not going to add to the deficit. So the amendment simply said that we're going to suspend the cost components of the bill if the Congressional Budget Office determines that it will be adding to the deficit.

We've been assured from the outset that this was not going to add to this catastrophic deficit. So when H.R. 3200 was taken up before the House Committee on Labor and Education, that's exactly the amendment that I offered. If the Congressional Budget Office says this is adding to the deficit, we'll suspend the cost provisions of the bill. Well, perhaps not surprising to you or to those who follow this carefully, but I think surprising to a lot of folks who believed the President, that amendment was defeated on a straight party-line vote.

Yet just a few months before that on a straight party-line vote, his supporters in this House defeated an amendment that would have protected the Treasury against this measure adding to our deficit.

It was.

No, it leaves me with a great deal of confidence that the supporters of this bill don't believe that claim. And that's the point I came down here to make. If the President's supporters actually believed this bill would not add to the deficit, they should have had no problem with the amendment. Obviously, they don't have that confidence.

Well, we know what H.R. 3200 says. About a half a trillion dollars is going to be from raising the taxes of the very wealthy individuals who earn over $250,000 a year. Well, we get paid pretty well by the taxpayers for our jobs, but that doesn't affect us. It doesn't affect most people. What a relief, right? Until you scratch the surface and you realize that more than half of those taxpayers aren't very wealthy and they aren't even individuals. They are small businesses filing as subchapter S corporations that are barely holding on by their fingernails right now. Those are the people who will be bearing that.

If H.R. 3200 is passed, that's precisely what it proposes.

Not necessarily. It will still be very easy to build a successful small business in America. All you'll have to do is start with a successful large business.

No doubt of that. We've seen the proposals. And the attack particularly on Medicare Advantage.

That's what the authors are proposing.

The fact is ultimately I think the supporters of the bill realize that their numbers don't add up. That's why they have opposed every attempt to actually enforce the fiscal integrity of this measure by amendment. The question I think all of us should be asking right now is if the authors of this plan have no faith in its fiscal integrity, why should the rest of us?

Quite right.

While we're on the subject of amendments that have already been offered to H.R. 3200, there are two others we ought to mention. One, making it very clear that illegal aliens will not be entitled to care under this plan. That was voted down on a straight party-line vote. So obviously the intent of the authors of the bill is something quite a bit different than the President assured us was the intent on the floor several weeks ago.

Yet an amendment that made that clear was voted down on a straight party-line vote in committee.

Another amendment that was offered, as you know, was to require Members of Congress to take the public option.

And interestingly enough, that amendment was killed on a straight party-line vote in the Ways and Means Committee.

You mentioned the researchers reading the bill. The big problem for supporters of this government takeover of our health care system is very simple: the American people are reading the bill and are realizing the impact that it will have on their lives and are now rejecting it by a substantial margin.

I come from the California legislature, and I thought that was a process that had deteriorated. But the California legislature in its constitution requires that a bill be in print for 30 days before any action; even a committee changing a punctuation mark. Thirty days.

California still has a few last vestiges of sobriety in its process, that being one of them. A proposal that a bill should be in print 72 hours before final passage doesn't sound so radical.

And don't forget the so-called stimulus bill.

$787 billion, more than three-quarters of a trillion dollars, the biggest spending bill in the history of this country, introduced at 11 o'clock at night and taken up for debate at 10 o'clock the next morning.

And if you want to know why it is that the Federal Government would end up sending out 4,000 stimulus checks to incarcerated felons at various penitentiaries, there's your answer.

As you know, there's a lot of concern among the Members of Congress, particularly on this side of the aisle, that the intention of the majority is to suddenly emerge with a new health care bill in the same manner that we saw the stimulus jammed through. That's why we're seeing so much resistance among Democratic Party leaders to the discharge petition that requires the bill be in print for 72 hours and bring it to the House floor for a vote.

Why would they be resisting?

Justice Brandeis long ago told us that sunlight is the best of disinfectants, sunlight on this bill that the majority seems so frightened of. And that's why it's so important to get that 72 hours' notice, not just for the Members of Congress who are being asked to vote on it but for

the people of the United States who are being asked to live under it ought to have some chance to know what bills are being proposed and being adopted by this Congress in their name that directly affects the quality of their lives and their families' lives.

Yes.

That's a story that we hear all the time out of those nations that have allowed their governments to take over their health care system. There's an article I believe in the Wall Street Journal today telling the story of a Canadian from Calgary who had a hip problem. It was going to be more than a year before they would allow her the surgery. Of course they're not allowed to have private insurance in Canada. As the bumper sticker says, The government hates competition.

She traveled to Montana and paid $50,000 out of her own pocket so that she could get that hip surgery done in a timely manner.

You may remember the story of the Calgary mother a few years ago. It was a big story at the time. I think she had identical quintuplets. The odds of that are something like one in a zillion.

So a great deal of publicity. What didn't get a lot of publicity was the fact that that Calgary mother had her baby in Great Falls, Montana.

By the way, she wasn't just visiting Montana. She had to be rushed more than 300 miles south to an American hospital to have those babies, just as the woman with the hip surgery, also from Calgary, had to travel to Montana to have her hip surgery done. And the question occurs: If we allow the same thing to happen to the American health care system, where are we going to go for necessary surgery when all of us end up on a waiting list?

We all know that a common hallmark of the bureaucracy is long waiting lines, whether it's at the DMV or the post office. Long waiting lines at the DMV and the post office are inconvenient and they're annoying, but a 6-month waiting list for needed heart surgery can be downright fatal.

Fortunately, there is a better alternative. It can be summed up in a word: Freedom. We have the ability through the tax system to provide a refundable, prepaid tax credit; a health voucher, if you will, on a sliding income scale that would bring within the reach of every American family a basic health plan that they could choose according to their own needs; that they could own, regardless of who their employer is; and that they could change if it failed to suit their needs.

Correct. It would be the individual owning their own policy.

You can tell a nonresponsive insurance company, You're fired--I'll take my business elsewhere. You know, in all the years I've held public office, I've never had anybody write a letter to me and say, My grocery store stopped carrying Wheaties this month, and you need to pass a law to force them to do so.

Why don't I get those letters? Because it's a lot easier to take your business to the next supermarket that does have what you want at a price that's competitive

The problem is, today in this country, unless you're self-employed, chances are you don't own your own health plan. Your employer owns it or the government owns it. And you don't control it and can't tell a nonresponsive health plan or a nonresponsive company, You're fired, because you don't own the plan to begin with.

If we can use the tax system to bring within the means of every family that basic health plan that they will own, they will then have the same power over their health plan, over their health insurance company, that they have right now over their grocery store--to take their business elsewhere if it fails to meet their needs.

And if you have that voucher that brings within your reach that basic health plan and then have the freedom to shop around for that plan that best meets your needs, you are in a controlling position that will protect you against nonresponsive insurers, nonresponsive health plans.

But that's going to require a couple of other things, which is also included in Republican legislation. One of those things is the freedom to shop across State lines for that plan that might give you better services at a lower cost. I know in California we don't have that freedom. We don't require Californians only to shop at California retailers or only to bank at California banks.

Exactly. We don't allow the freedom of Californians-- and this is true of most States--to go across State lines to buy a better health plan.

Of course it does.

Exactly right. You remember what Will and Ariel Durant wrote. This was before the government took over our automobile manufacturers. They asked the question, What makes Ford a great car? Chevrolet. Competition.

We restrict competition in the health care field. And that's one of the reasons why people have such restrictions on their choices.

Another of the restrictions on their choices, of course, are the endless number of mandates that are imposed by State governments and the Federal Government. Every one of those mandates require you to pay for coverage you might not want, you might not need, but you're being forced to pay for.

I tell you another thing that needs addressing--and that's where this debate is so healthy; there are things that have to be changed--and that's the question of preexisting conditions.

I had a fellow come to me a few years ago. He had left his job and therefore lost his insurance. So he was now trying to get insurance as a private individual. He couldn't find it anywhere. Why? Preexisting condition. He had bursitis.

He says, Look, I don't care about the bursitis. I'll take care of that myself. I'm concerned about a catastrophic disease or a catastrophic illness. Just write me a policy for all of that and I'll take care of the bursitis myself.

The response was, We'd love to write you such a policy, but we can't.

It's against the law.

In California. I actually introduced legislation in the California legislature that would allow health plans to provide coverage and write out that preexisting condition. Also, by the way, legislation to allow Californians to shop across State lines. Both of those were killed on straight party-line votes in the California legislature, and now we're watching the same reforms being defeated here by the Democrats in this Congress.

But Americans know better. There's a certain degree of skepticism that the same government that pays $400 for a hammer and $600 for a toilet seat and is currently running a $1.6 trillion annual deficit is somehow going to keep our health care costs down. There's a great deal of skepticism that the same government that runs FEMA is going to somehow bring efficiency to our doctors' offices. And there is a great deal of skepticism that the same government that runs the IRS is going to bring compassion and understanding to our insurance companies.

We've seen it time and again, every single time, whether it's in Britain or Canada or in places like Tennessee and Massachusetts that have tried the same thing. Very consistent results. Every time. Massive cost overruns that must be then followed by a brutal rationing of care.

I just want to thank you, Congressman, for organizing this discussion today and for including me in on it. I know you have some remarks to conclude with, so I will yield back.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Timothy Smith of South Lake Tahoe, CA, who was killed in the line of duty on April 7, 2007. Tim is survived by his wife Shayna Richard-Smith, their son Riley, his parents, Patricia and Michael, his brother Tom, and his sister Jackie.

Tim graduated from South Tahoe High School in 2001 and joined the Army in April 2004. He will always be remembered for his sense of humor, his warmth, and his great courage. Senator Harry Reid, on the floor of the United States Senate, called Tim Smith ``a hero--a real- life American hero--who gave his life so that others might be safe.''

Timothy Smith gave the ultimate sacrifice, may we never forget.

Madam Speaker, I rise to honor the life and service of Lance Corporal Brad Shuder of El Dorado Hills, CA, who was killed in action on April 12, 2004 while serving his country in Iraq. Lance Corporal Shuder graduated from Oakridge High School in El Dorado Hills. The day he graduated, Brad enlisted in the Marine Corps. He is survived by his parents, Glenn and Rose, and his younger sister, Chelsey.

I cannot begin to comprehend the tragedy of losing such a loving and courageous young man and I cannot soothe that pain with my words. All I can do is say thank you for Brad's sacrifice. Brad's cousin, Reverend Michael Bugarin, officiated the funeral service and delivered the following words: ``Brad did something extraordinary. He was willing to sacrifice his life for me and you.'' May we never forget the sacrifices that the sons and daughters of our great country have made.

I thank the gentleman from Minnesota.

Madam Chairman, this really is a case study in how a public option ultimately becomes a public monopoly in a span of just a few years.

The gentleman from Minnesota is absolutely right, this Direct Loan Program was established in 1993 as a public option. It was designed to increase consumer choice; that's what we were told at the time. It had only one problem. The consumers never warmed to it.

At its peak, the government Direct Loan Program only attracted 34 percent of loan volume. Today, even with all of the financial difficulties in the private sector, it has earned only 27 percent of the market. The rest of that market is ably administered by 1,500 active lenders and servicers and guarantee agencies that employ more than 30,000 private sector workers. This bill literally shuts down 40 years of successful private sector involvement with student loans and hands the government monopoly control. As the bumper sticker warns, the government hates competition.

We're told this is going to save money. Well, pardon my skepticism, but I seriously doubt that the same government that runs FEMA is going to bring efficiency to the student loan program. In fact, it's precisely the fierce competition among loan providers that has produced lower prices for students and universities and that produces innovations in loan delivery and processing and servicing, not to mention broader benefits such as college planning services, financial literacy education, default aversion, and FAFSA assistance.

One of those providers is the California EdFund, near my district. Last year alone, the EdFund helped nearly 420,000 borrowers to avoid default. They saved taxpayers $4.2 billion in default claims; that's one provider, $4.2 billion in savings for American taxpayers.

Before the government took over our automobile manufacturers, Will and Ariel Durant asked this question: What makes Ford a good car? Chevrolet. Competition. That creative and innovative force is snuffed out by this bill for the student loan industry. And mark my words, if this bill becomes law, we are going to be back here in a few years to address growing cost overruns and inefficiencies in yet another failed government monopoly program.

Madam Speaker, on September 17, 1787, thirty-nine delegates from twelve states met at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to sign the Constitution. The Constitution went into effect two years later, on March 4, 1789.

Each September 17 is designated as Constitution Day. Constitution Day is a day to display the flag of the United States of America and many Americans observe it in our nation's history by attending local events. One such event is Nevada City's Constitution Day Parade, which has been a local tradition since 1967 and is reported to be the oldest and largest Constitution observance in western America.

Festivities include a parade through the downtown historic district with marching bands, floats, antique autos, equestrians, politicians and perennial crowd favorites such as the Ophir Prison Marching Kazoo Band and the Famous Marching Presidents of Nevada City, a humorous but reverent group that portrays each U.S. president. Members of the American Civil War Association also offer living history and battle reenactments and more than 200 military and settler reenactors are expected to take part.

Nevada City is located on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains midway between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe and is known for its classic small town spirit and unique events. With a population of 3,001, Nevada City swells to 10,000 or more on Constitution Day.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to a young man who gave his life last week while fighting the Backbone Fire in the Trinity Alps wilderness.

Thomas Marovich, Jr. was just 20 years old. He was in his second year with the U.S. Forest Service assigned to the Modoc National Forest. He was training with the Chester Helitack crew assigned to the Backbone Fire when a training accident claimed his life.

He was born and raised in Hayward, but he had come to Northeastern California to protect our forests, our communities, and our citizens from the

ravages of fire. Thomas Marovich had wanted to be a firefighter since he was a little boy and, by all accounts, had an exemplary life ahead of him. He was only able to live 20 years of that life, sacrificing the rest of it for the safety of our community. And for that, we owe him and his grieving family our eternal gratitude.

Mr. Speaker, in order to support the Democrats' health care plan we are asked to accept three arguments that are fundamentally absurd. First, that the same government that pioneered $400 hammers and $600 toilet seats is somehow going to control our health care costs. Second, that the same government that runs FEMA is going to make our health care system more efficient and responsive. And third, that the same government that runs the IRS is going to make our health care more compassionate and understanding. Frankly, I doubt it.

Instead of putting government in charge of our health care decisions, let's put patients back in charge. We can do that by using tax credits to bring within the reach of every family a basic health plan that they can choose, that they can own, and that they can change if it fails to meet their needs. That is what the Republicans are proposing, and it is a much better way.

Mr. Speaker, I was struck by the chilling similarity between the broad-based taxes under the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade tax we passed several weeks ago and the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 that economists blame as one of the major factors in producing the Great Depression.

Another of Hoover's blunders was the Emergency Relief and Construction Act of 1932. Its centerpiece was a radical increase in income tax rates from 25 percent to well over 50 percent.

If that sounds familiar, it should. That's one of the financing proposals in the health care bill that would push State and Federal income tax rates to more than 50 percent in most States.

Mr. Speaker, when I see the same policies from this administration that turned the recession of 1929 into the Depression of the 1930s, I'm reminded of Ben Franklin's observation that ``experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.''

Mr. Speaker, these policies are lengthening and deepening this recession because this administration did not even learn from experience.

I want to thank my colleague from Utah (Mr. Bishop) for yielding and for organizing this Special Order for the House tonight and for the attention he's devoted to the suffering in my district that's been caused by the lunatic fringe of the environmental movement that now seems to be so firmly in control of our national policy on public lands. At this point, we're not just trying to create jobs, we are desperately trying to stop losing them because of these policies.

You know, a generation ago we recognized the importance of proper wildlands management. We recognized that there is a balance between the environment and the economy and that both can thrive through proper policy. We recognize that nothing is more devastating to the ecology of a forest than a forest fire, and we recognize that public lands should be managed for the benefit of the public. We recognize that in any living community, including forests, dense overpopulation is simply unhealthy.

So we carefully groomed our public lands, we removed excessive vegetation and gave timber the room that it needed to grow. Surplus timber and overgrowth were sold for the benefit of our communities. Our forests prospered and our economy prospered, and forest fires were far less numerous and far less intense than we see today.

But that was before a radical ideology was introduced into public policy--that we should abandon our public lands to overgrowth and overpopulation and, in essence, to benign negligent. We are now living with the result of that ideology. Forest fires that are fueled by decades of pent-up overgrowth are now increasing in their frequency and their intensity and their destructiveness. One victim of this wrongheaded policy is the environment itself. Recent forest fires in my region make a mockery of all of our clean-air regulations. And anyone who has seen a forest after one of these fires knows that the environmental devastation could not possibly be more complete. But these policies also carry a tremendous economic price. Timber is a renewable resource. If it is properly managed, it is literally an inexhaustible source of prosperity for our Nation. And yet, my region, which is blessed with the most bountiful resource in all of California, has literally been rendered economically prostrate by these policies. A region that once prospered from its surplus timber is now ravaged by fires that are fueled by that surplus timber.

Which brings me to the story of the townspeople of Quincy and El Camino, both little towns in the northeast corner of California. Two months ago, 150 families in each of those little towns received notice that the sawmills that employ them must close. The company made it very clear in its announcement that although the economic downturn was the catalyst, the underlying cause was the fact that two-thirds of the timber that they depended upon had been held up by environmental litigation. Despite the recession, they still had enough business to keep those mills open--and to keep these families employed--if the environmental left had not cut off the timber that those mills depended upon.

Now bear in mind that the population of the town of Quincy is about 400 families--the greater Quincy area about 1,250 families. We are talking about pink slips going to 150 of those families. And they are not the only ones who have lost incomes. Many more jobs were lost indirectly--the folks who drive the trucks and sell the supplies--all lost their jobs as well. This occurred despite the groundbreaking work of a local coalition called the Quincy Library Group that forged a model compromise between environmental, business and forest management advocates a decade ago. That work had culminated in legislation called the Herger-Feinstein Quincy Library Group Forest Recovery Act. It was adopted 11 years ago in this very Chamber by a vote of 429-1. This consensus agreement provided for sound and sustainable forest management practices that in turn would support both local jobs and healthier forests. As Senator Feinstein, a Democrat, pointed out at the time, every single environmental law, including the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest Management Act, would be followed as this proposal is implemented. Yet despite a model compromise that produced a model law, the will of the Congress, the livelihoods of hundreds of innocent families, and the fire safety of scores of mountain communities is being challenged and undermined by a constant stream of litigation from groups purporting to support the environment. And I say ``purporting'' because, as the Web site of one of those groups declares, their number one policy goal is to ``eliminate commercial logging on all public lands in California.'' Their policy is not to protect the environment. Their policy is deliberately to destroy commercial enterprise.

We held an informal hearing in Quincy after the mill closures that my friend from Utah was kind enough to join us for. And the stories we heard at that hearing were absolutely heartbreaking. It is a story of how, despite the law, this constant litigation, which is ultimately rejected by the courts, has nevertheless delayed implementation of the Forest Recovery Act until the mills collapse, and that's what we are dealing with today. They know they don't have to win the litigation, all they have to do is draw out the process. And they have done that very successfully until 150 families in Quincy and another 150 families in El Camino lost their jobs. We then held a formal hearing here in Washington, and from that hearing, Congressman Herger has introduced his bill, H.R. 2899, to prevent frivolous litigation from continuing to destroy those jobs and continuing to impede the fire safety measures that are so vital to the preservation of these forests. I'm in the final stages of preparing legislation to at least grant litigation relief for the land that is actually within the Quincy Library Group territory defined in the legislation. And of course these bills are already being attacked by the same radical groups responsible for the litigation and regulation that is destroying these jobs, destroying these families, destroying these communities and destroying our forests. These extremists even oppose the salvaging of timber that has already been destroyed by forest fires or by disease. Now think about that. Trees that are already dead cannot be salvaged because of lawsuits filed by these extremist groups. And again, they know if they can simply delay the salvage for 2 years, the trees decay to the point where they can't be recovered. And they would rather let those trees rot on the ground rather than to be removed and salvaged to provide jobs for families and lumber for homes and revenues for the national Treasury.

The economic suffering this is now causing is immediate, and it is acute. But an even more ominous effect is placing at risk our mountain communities and our national forests to intense wildfires made possible because overgrowth is no longer being removed. As one forester told me, those trees are going to come out of the forest one way or another. They are either going to be carried out, or they will be burned out. When the excess timber was carried out, we had a thriving lumber industry that put food on the tables and clothes on the children of thousands of working families throughout northern California. More importantly, we also had much healthier forests and far fewer and milder forest fires than we suffer today. This isn't environmentalism. True environmentalists recognize the damage done by overgrowth and overpopulation and recognize that the role of sound forest management practices

is to maintain healthy forests. We are also watching them systematically shut down our public land for public use and public benefit. And every time a little town like Quincy or El Camino is strangled to death by these policies, it has a ripple effect throughout the Nation. Our Nation loses tax revenues, commerce withers, the price of raw materials rises and public resources are diverted to provide economic relief. And our forests suffer as well.

But there's one infinitely higher cost that I haven't mentioned yet, and that brings me to the tragic news that I must impart to the House tonight. There is a raging fire in the Shasta/Trinity National Forest as we speak right now. It's called the ``Backbone Fire.'' About 2 hours ago, I received word that a young man, Thomas Marovich, Jr.--20 years old--from the little town of Aiden in my district, was killed this afternoon fighting that fire. And every time a little town like Aiden mourns the loss of a promising young man like Thomas Marovich, Jr., it is not only a tragedy--if preventable, it is an outrage.

Mr. Speaker, the time has come for the great silent majority of Americans to rise up against the most radical elements of the environmental movement that now seem to control so much of our public policy and to demand that we restore our public land for public use and public benefit, and that we restore the sound forest management practices that once minimized the forest fires that are now again destroying communities and taking lives.

Absolutely.

Well, that is why for many years we thinned those forests, to reduce the intensity of those forest fires, to reduce the number of those forest fires, and from that excess timber, we provided a thriving economy throughout that region. And by the way, we also provided a tremendous revenue stream to the national Treasury because that timber is on land owned by the people of the United States. So we had healthier forests, and we had a healthy economy. Both have been imperiled by those policies. And then to that you have to add the tragedy of the human loss of those heroic young men like Mr. Marovich who gave his life today to try to stop those fires, which are much more intense today and much more numerous today than they were a generation ago when we practiced sound forest management practice.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, when we talk about Herbert Hoover's mishandling of the recession of 1929, the very first thing that economists point to is the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act that imposed new taxes on over 20,000 imported products.

I believe the Waxman-Markey bill is going to be looked back upon as our generation's Smoot-Hawley Act. In fact, it is worse. It imposes new taxes on an infinitely larger number of domestic products on a scale that utterly dwarfs Smoot-Hawley. At least Hoover could argue that Smoot-Hawley made domestic products more competitive with imports. Waxman-Markey disadvantages American products.

When California adopted similar carbon restrictions 3 years ago, we too were promised an explosion of green jobs. Instead, California's unemployment rate has skyrocketed to one of the highest in the country.

I believe that if this bill becomes law, history guarantees us two things. Number one, the planet will continue to warm and to cool as it has been doing for billions of years; and two, Congress will have just delivered a staggering blow to our Nation's economy just at the time when it is most vulnerable.

Mr. Speaker, I had a strange sense of deja vu as I stood here on the floor of the House and watched all of the self- congratulatory rhetoric a few moments ago on the passage of the cap- and-trade bill, and I feel the need to rise to issue an urgent warning from the west coast.

I stood on the floor of the Senate of California 3 years ago and watched a very similar bill adopted and watched the same sort of self- congratulatory celebrations as we just saw here, and I have watched over those years as that measure has dramatically deepened California's recession. It uses a slightly different mechanism than cap-and-trade, but the objective is exactly the same, to force a dramatic reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

Now, up until that bill took effect, California's unemployment numbers tracked very closely with the national unemployment rate. But then, in January of 2007, California's unemployment rate began a steady upward divergence from the national jobless figures. Today, California's unemployment rate is more than two points above the national rate and is at its highest point since 1941.

What happened in January of 2007? AB 32 took effect and it began shutting down entire sectors of California's economy.

Let me give you just one example from my own district. The city of Truckee, California, was about to sign a long-term power contract to get its electricity from a new EPA-approved coal-fired plant way off in Utah. But AB 32 and companion legislation caused them to abandon that contract. The replacement power that they acquired literally doubled their electricity costs.

So when economists warn that we can expect electricity prices to double under the cap-and-trade bill, I can tell you from the bitter experience of my district that that is not some future prediction. That is a historical fact.

Governor Schwarzenegger assured us at the time that AB 32 would mean an explosion of new, green jobs--exactly the same promises that we heard on this floor today.

Well, in California exactly the opposite has happened. We have lost so many jobs that the UCSB economic forecast is now using the D word-- depression--to describe California's job market.

Mr. Speaker, the cap-and-trade bill proposes what amounts to endlessly increasing taxes on any enterprises that produce carbon dioxide or other so-called greenhouse gases. We need to understand exactly what that means. It has profound implications for agriculture, construction, cargo and passenger transportation, energy production, baking and brewing--all of which produce enormous quantities of this innocuous, ubiquitous compound. In fact, every human being produces 2.2 pounds of carbon dioxide every day--just by breathing.

So applying a tax to the economy designed to radically constrict carbon dioxide emissions means radically constricting the economy. And this brings us to the fine point of the matter.

When we look back on the folly of the Hoover administration and how it turned the recession of 1929 into the Depression of the 1930s, the first thing that economists point to is the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act that imposed new taxes on 20,000 imported products.

The Waxman-Markey bill, I'm afraid, is our generation's Smoot-Hawley that imposes new taxes on an infinitely larger list of domestic products on a scale that utterly dwarfs Smoot-Hawley.

Let's ignore for the moment the fact that the planet's climate is constantly changing and that long-term global warming has been going on since the last ice age. Let's ignore the fact within recorded history we know of periods when the Earth's climate has been much warmer than it is today, and others when it's been much cooler. Let's ignore the thousands of climate scientists and meteorologists who've concluded that human-produced greenhouse gases are, at most, a negligible factor in global warming or climate change.

Ignore all of that and we're still left with one lousy sense of timing. In the most serious recession since the Great Depression, why is it that Members of this House want to repeat the same mistakes that produced the Great Depression?

Watching how California has just wrecked its own economy and destroyed its own finances, why would Members of this House want to do the same thing to our Nation?

Mr. Speaker, this is deadly serious stuff. It transcends ideology and politics. This House has just made the biggest economic mistake since the days of Herbert Hoover.

Two things are certain if this measure becomes law. First, our planet is going to continue to warm and cool, as it's been doing for billions of years. And, secondly, this House will have just delivered a staggering blow to our Nation's economy at precisely that moment when the economy has been the most vulnerable.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, many years ago, author and commentator Bruce Herschensohn made the point that for every pleasure in life, there is a corresponding risk. I think that is a universal truth: for every pleasure in life, there is a corresponding risk.

And he pointed out it is true that with enough taxes and laws and restrictions and regulations and penalties and lectures, government can produce a virtually risk-free society, but it will also be one of the most colorless, pleasureless, tedious, and miserable societies ever conceived by the mind of man.

I think that is the case. The health dangers of smoking are real and they are well-documented. We all agree on that. It is a very bad thing to do.

Our schools rightly make a concerted effort to inform every child of the health risks associated with tobacco products, and they do a good job of it.

Our government warns every adult of the risks associated with tobacco products, and they do a good job of it, too.

As a result, I don't believe there is a single individual in the United States today who doesn't well and fully comprehend the health dangers of tobacco. But once those warnings are issued, how much further should government go to make individual decisions for rational adults as they weigh the risks of smoking for themselves? Personally, I think they are making a very bad decision, but they probably think others are making bad decisions when they decide to go skiing or bungee jumping or sky diving or thousands of other pleasures that incur corresponding and calculated risks.

I would ask today, whatever happened to the notion of individual responsibility? And whatever happened to the notion, as Jefferson put it, of a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, but shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement?

Mr. Speaker, the Governor of my home State of California has called for the Federal Government to underwrite as much as $15 billion of revenue anticipation notes that the State has to issue to avoid bankruptcy. I think that would be a colossal mistake. Such an act would not only put at risk billions of dollars that our country cannot afford, it would actually make California's fiscal condition worse.

Today, California faces a paradox. Despite record levels of spending and record levels of borrowing, it can no longer produce a decent road system or educate its kids or lock up its prisoners. Those who blame the recession for California's budget crisis profoundly misunderstand the nature of that crisis.

Even before California's revenue began to shrink, the State government was running a chronic $10 billion deficit and piling up unprecedented debt. The recession was merely the catalyst. The underlying cause is rampant mismanagement of the State's resources.

California spends about $43,000 to house a prisoner per year, while many States spend just half of that. California spends over $11,000 per pupil, but only a fraction of that ever reaches the classroom. California has one of the most expensive welfare systems in the country, and yet one of the worst records in moving people off of welfare.

That has never seemed to bother California's legislature or its Governor. They are like the shopkeeper who leased out too much space, ordered too much inventory, hired too many people and paid them too much. Every moment that shopkeeper covers his shortfalls with borrowing and bookkeeping tricks.

Ultimately he is going to reach a tipping point, where anything he does makes the situation worse. Borrowing costs are eating him alive and he is running out of credit. Raising prices causes his sales to decline and there is only so much discretionary spending that he can cut.

That is California's predicament in a nutshell. California's borrowing costs now exceed the budget of the entire University of California, and the reason for their loan guarantees is their credit is exhausted. They have just imposed the biggest tax increase by any State in American history, and it has actually reduced their revenues and made the budget gap wider.

Although there are many obsolete, duplicative or low-priority programs and expenditures that the State can and should abolish, there aren't enough of them to come anywhere close to closing California's deficit without directly impacting basic services.

Sadly, California has reached the terminal stage of a bureaucratic state, where government has become so large and so tangled that it can no longer perform even basic functions, a warning to all of us here in this House, I might add. Simply stated, there is now no substitute for a fundamental restructuring of the State's major service delivery systems and restoring the efficiencies that once produced a far higher level of service at far lower costs than what we see today.

Now, restoring that efficiency is going to require the Governor and the legislature to wrest control from the public employee unions, to dismantle the enormous bureaucracies that have grown up over the service delivery system, and to decentralize administration and decisionmaking, to contract out services that the private sector can provide more efficiently, to rescind the recent tax increases that are actually costing the State money, and to roll back the regulatory obstacles to productive enterprise.

These are the changes that cannot be implemented overnight and that will not begin to produce results for some time, and that brings us to the fine point of the matter. What Churchill called history's ``chilling words'' are about to be pronounced on California's failed leadership: Too late.

The Federal loan guarantee or bailout may be the only way to buy time for the restructuring of California's bureaucracies to take effect, but the discussion remains academic until and unless the State actually adopts the replacement structures, actually unburdens its shrinking productive sector and presents a credible plan to redeem the State's crushing debt and looming obligations. Without these actions, Federal intervention will only make California's problems worse by postponing reform, continuing unsustainable spending and piling up

still more debt that the State cannot redeem.

In short, if California won't help itself, the Federal Government cannot and it should not and it must not.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Deputy Shawn Webb of the Plumas County Sheriff's Department.

The entire department, joined by the people of Plumas County, are rallying behind this remarkable young man and his family as he battles a very difficult illness. You don't see this kind of outpouring very often these days. It is a testament to the impact that Deputy Shawn Webb has had on his department and on his community.

Shawn's Commander writes, ``We here in Plumas County are blessed to have a `Grade A' California-raised, true-blooded American Hero.''

So I rise to salute the bravery and dedication that Deputy Shawn Webb has brought to his professional life in protecting our community, qualities now so conspicuous in his battle in his personal life.

I also want to salute the people of Plumas County who have embraced and supported Shawn and his family in this difficult time.