Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I introduced a bill that would eliminate sweetheart deals. Recently, the current health care bill that got passed, I know in my area, in my town hall meetings, talking to a lot of Americans, people are concerned about the health care bill that just passed, but they are outraged about the sweetheart deals.

What do I mean? The $300 million that went to the Louisiana purchase, $100 million that went to a hospital in Connecticut. People are outraged because they feel it is their money, it is their taxpayer money, and they are very concerned about it. They feel it is buying votes.

And that's the reason I think we have such a low approval rating in this country, because they view it as backroom deals, secret deals. This bill will eliminate all the sweetheart deals that are in this bill.

I ask my colleagues to join me in eliminating sweetheart deals in the current health care legislation.

I want to thank the gentleman from California.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose this bill. It does nothing to lower costs or little to lower costs, it raises taxes $540 billion, and it cuts Medicare.

Being in business and signing the front of payroll checks, I can tell you that one of the biggest concerns with small businesses is the escalation of health care. It is $10,000 to $12,000 today for a small business in a family. CEO Roundtable is saying if we do nothing about it--and this bill does nothing about it--it will go to $28,000 in the next 10 years.

It also increases taxes $540 billion. A lot of those taxes are passed through to small businesses, the LLCs and sole proprietorships. It passes through to them, it hurts working families, and it will not increase jobs.

The other thing, as someone that represents an area that has the most seniors in the country, we have real cuts, not just waste, fraud, and abuse, of $500 billion. This will really hurt seniors. I had a senior the other day say, ``All I have is my Social Security and Medicare. It is not perfect, but don't mess with my Medicare.''

Mr. Speaker, Speaker Pelosi recently said that we have to pass the health care bill so we can find out what's in it. I can tell you what's in it. It does nothing for cost.

I'm not a career politician. I have been in business for myself for 30 years and created thousands of jobs. Small businesses are dying. We need to bring down the cost of health care. Today it is $12,000 for a family of four. A recent study said it's going to take it to $28,000 for a family of four in the next 10 years. We are doing nothing about lowering the cost of health care. It's killing small businesses. It's killing jobs.

What also is in the bill, $740 billion in tax increases. Small businesses are going to be the ones that feel it the most. Most of them have pass-through income. It will be another big, job-killing opportunity for small businesses.

The third thing is that it really hurts seniors; $500 billion worth of real cuts, not just waste, fraud, and abuse. I have looked at the cuts. They are very serious cuts.

And now we have learned that the Speaker wants to pass the bill without actually taking a vote that will cover at-risk Members. No wonder the American people are fed up with Washington.

Mr. Speaker, as most people know, Warren Buffett was an early adviser to President Obama. Just this week, Buffett said the President should scrap the health care bill and start over. He noted the American people are not behind this bill. He said the goal is to lower cost. I completely agree with Mr. Buffett. The American people don't want a trillion dollar government takeover of health care. Also, people don't want to raise taxes, cut Medicare, and giveaways to Washington special interests.

We need to reduce costs by taking a few simple steps: one, medical malpractice reform; two, increase competition; three, sell insurance across State lines; four, expand health savings accounts. That is a prescription the American people will support.

Mr. Speaker, Congress will raise the debt ceiling $1.9 trillion to $14.6 trillion this week. The deficit last year, $1.5 trillion. The budget introduced on Monday is another $1.5 trillion. We're over $12 trillion in debt, on our way to $20 trillion.

The American people are saying, Enough is enough. Families and businesses in the last couple of years have had less revenues. They've made cuts. In the United States, 49 out of 50 Governors have had to balance their budgets. We need a constitutional balanced budget now. I would ask the President and congressional leaders to step up. Again, in the last 50 years, we've only balanced the budget five times. We need real leadership and real courage, and we need it right now. We need to make the cuts and get the budget in line.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I introduced the Job Creation

Act of 2010. The number one priority in America should be jobs and helping small businesses. My five-point plan is to provide tax relief for small businesses. Instead of writing off equipment over 5 years, have them write it off over 1 year and sunset it in a year or two. Eliminate capital gains tax on companies. There's plenty of capital. People don't have confidence in the administration; they don't have confidence in this Congress. But there is capital to invest. The small businesses need that capital to create jobs.

We're taxing unemployment benefits at 11 percent. That needs to stop. We need to sunset that. TARP funds, $750 billion: we committed to the American people that would be paid back. They are paying back much of the funds. It needs to go to pay down the $12 trillion debt. Also, we need to curb frivolous lawsuits. It's driving up health care, it's killing businesses, it's killing jobs.

I urge Members from both sides of the aisle to support this bill.

I would like to thank the gentleman from Virginia for his enormous leadership.

As I agree with all of my colleagues, everybody has a different reason why they run for Congress. I have been in business for 30 years. Your first term, my second term. But that was my number one issue by far is these runaway deficits. And since I came in 2006, we've got $1.4 trillion. We've picked up another $2 trillion. Another 20 percent we've added to the deficit in the last 3 years. It's crazy.

The numbers today were over $12 trillion in debt. And with the budget the Democrats have presented in terms of going forward, they're talking about close to $20 trillion in the next 6, 7, 8 years. If you took the number of 5 percent cost of money on $20 trillion, it's a trillion dollars a year before you pay $1 for Social Security, Medicare, or anything. It's unbelievable.

This past year, the deficit was $1.4 trillion. As bad as it's been in the past, if you look at $300 billion, $400 billion is way too much. We should have been balancing those budgets. But $1.4 trillion, that is three times larger, plus, than any other deficit from that standpoint.

The last 50 years--and what really motivated me is why this has to be a bipartisan effort. In the last 50 years, I think--and you might know exactly the number, but I think it's only been about four or five or six times we balanced the budget. Forty-four times we haven't. We're incapable of balancing this budget, with the exception of getting a constitutional balanced budget amendment.

Forty-nine out of fifty Governors have to balance their budgets. Our city in Sarasota, Florida, or Manatee County, they've got to balance their budgets. Families have to balance their budgets. Businesses can't continue to spend.

I grew up in Detroit down the street from General Motors. If you look at the most powerful, successful corporation in the world, made a lot of commitments to a lot of folks who used to be 30 and out for the blue collar worker. My brother was there when he was 18. Many of them looked at 30 and out. But now they've reneged on all of the benefits and everything else. We've got to stop it. It's crazy, and we've got to bring some common sense to this whole process.

That is why we've got to have a constitutional balanced budget amendment. As my colleague mentioned, we were one vote short in '94, and we've got to go back in that effort. It defies logic why we don't do that.

The other thing, I came here and I want to be the best I can, bipartisan. The Democrats talked about PAYGO. That's a joke. PAYGO, it sounded good. You know, it's better than nothing, I thought. But we ran our largest deficit ever--$1.4 trillion with PAYGO. You look at now we want to have a commission and talk about that on a bipartisan basis. Again, they won't get it done. I have absolutely no confidence that that is going to get done.

We need a constitutional balanced budget amendment that says if you take in $3 trillion--that is what we took in my first year in Congress--you don't spend more than that, $3 trillion. As we said, 49 out of 50 Governors can't spend more than they take in. In the State of Florida, our budget was $72 trillion a few years ago. It's down to $62 trillion. They've had to make the adjustments. They've had to find the efficiencies. And we've got to do the same thing here.

I tell people--I think it was roughly a year ago you might remember we had a bill here, Aid to Africa. We were giving them $15 billion a year. And the thought was in this environment, same environment we're in now, tough year, families are making cuts, businesses are making cuts, you think they might cut it 10 percent or maybe add 2 percent. We're a very generous Nation. They went from $15 billion to $50 billion. And I think every Democrat voted for it and half the Republicans.

So my thought was, Okay, here we go. We're going to go borrow the money from China. Taxpayers are going to pay interest on that for a long time, and our children and grandchildren. And it's going to go to Africa, and God only knows where it goes when it gets to Africa. I thought to myself, Why don't we have China give it to Africa? Why do we have to be the middleman in that process?

But the bottom line is we've got to recommit ourselves. I think what happened on Tuesday a week ago in Massachusetts, spending and runaway spending has got so many people in my district and I think across the country, they realize that we defy common sense up here. That's why they're so angry and mad. There are a lot of other issues, but I think the top of this is they're concerned about what we leave our children and grandchildren.

I was in Bradenton, Florida, at a town hall meeting. A gentleman stood up, 63 years old. He said, Congressman, I have never been to one of these. I don't get involved politically in this. But he said, I have five children and I think 13 grandchildren. It's the first time in my life--I've been a small business man all my life. I am very, very concerned about where we're at and where we're going. I feel like we're heading towards bankruptcy, what I see, what I sense, my business background. He said, We can't continue to keep spending.

And I share that feeling. I know that my colleagues all share that feeling today, and this is the most important issue. It's the reason I came in 2006. I have two children in their mid-twenties. Every generation has left it better for the next generation. I don't want our generation to be the first generation that doesn't do this. And we need to come together in a bipartisan basis and do what's best, in the best interest of not only Americans but America.

Mr. Speaker, this week, I introduced legislation that requires terrorists to be tried in military courts. The American people are outraged that foreign terrorists that are waging war against the United States are being treated as common criminals. The al Qaeda- trained Nigerian terrorist accused of trying to blow up Flight 253 on Christmas Day--I was in Detroit that day--is only the latest example of this misguided policy.

The mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks is going on trial in New York City, just blocks from Ground Zero. Even the New York Democratic Governor disagrees with this approach.

Putting terrorists on trial before military tribunals has many benefits, including the fact that sensitive U.S. intelligence sources and methods will be protected. I urge all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support and cosponsor the Military Tribunal for Terrorists Act.

I want to thank the gentleman from Florida. I appreciate the opportunity.

My simple resolution requires that all negotiations on the health care bill be conducted under the watchful eye of the American people. The American people are angry, and for good reason. Washington is not listening.

Last night I think is a perfect example: It's not about Democrat and Republican, it's about the American people wanting to have more input into the process.

Even worse, Washington is not even letting the American people into the room to discuss or hear the health care reform debate. Secret deals, backroom deals on the health care bill should not be tolerated. In the State of Florida, we have the toughest sunshine laws in the country. You can't have two city commissioners, two county commissioners, two State senators--no one can go in the back room together and cut a deal or a secret deal and then lay that on the American people. We want to bring that sunshine to Washington. I am pleased that we have over 165 Members that have joined me in this cause and cosponsored this bill, this resolution, Democrats and Republicans.

Also, I introduced, and we have 111 Members that have signed, a discharge petition to force a vote on the floor. We want to get a vote to the floor on this sunshine resolution, and we feel confident that we're going to be able to do that.

C-SPAN has offered to publicly broadcast the health care meetings, and congressional leaders should accept that opportunity. Even the President said during the campaign eight different times that he wants this to be the most open, transparent administration in history. He said eight different times he wanted C-SPAN in the room. C-SPAN has agreed to be in the room during these negotiations. I don't want to, as a Member of Congress, end up with a 3,000-page bill at the end of the day that nobody has had a chance to read and you've got a day or so to look at it.

I think there is a good reason why Speaker Pelosi doesn't want the negotiations in public, because basically it's a bad bill. In my area of Sarasota-Bradenton, Florida, we have the most seniors, almost 300,000 in our district, more than any other district in the country. They want to cut Medicare $500 billion. I've seen the cuts. They're very real. They want to raise taxes on small business.

I know the biggest issue we've got is the economy and jobs. Working families want to get back to work, but yet they want to charge 8 percent on payroll. I've been in business for 30 years; I'm not a career politician. I can tell you that will kill more jobs than anything. That's a fixed expense, 8 percent on payroll.

They want to charge another 5.4 percent tax on businesses. Most businesses have pass-through income, whether they're a Sub S or LLC or a partnership, or whatever kind of business. They want to raise the taxes from 34, let Bush's tax cut sunset, which will take it to 39, then another 5.4, which will take it 45 percent in Florida. In many States like California that have a State income tax, or Oregon or New York, of 10 or 15 percent, it could take it up as high as 60 percent. So these small businesses have a lot of pass-through income. They're not going to have the capital. They're going to be sending the money here. That's going to cut more jobs.

It's time to bring some sunshine to Washington that we've got in Florida.

Madam Speaker, the congressional leaders this week

want to raise the Federal debt ceiling $1.8 trillion. The current debt in the country is over $12 trillion.

When I first came here 3 years ago, I introduced a constitutional balanced budget amendment. I hear up here the last 3 years that the Democrats are the problem, the Republicans are the problem on the spending. They're both the problem. In the last 50 years, they've only balanced the budget five or six times, yet 49 out of 50 Governors have to balance the budget.

Our State of Florida has had a tough cycle in terms of revenues. They've cut expenses. Families are cutting expenses. Small businesses in our communities are cutting 20, 30 percent in expenses, yet we're raising expenses 12 percent.

The time is now. We almost had a constitutional balanced budget amendment in 1994. That's the only thing that's going to solve the problem. We need to act today as Democrats and Republicans and do what's right for America and Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume.

I rise today in strong support of my legislation to modernize the Small Business Administration's small business counseling program. The Service Corps of Retired Executives program, also known as SCORE, provides entrepreneurs with the small business advice of working and retired executive volunteers.

For years, SCORE has been providing entrepreneurship with free, confidential, and valued small business advice. With double-digit unemployment rates, more people will be trying to start their own business today. Their success is vital to an economic recovery. This bill will help ensure that qualified volunteers are available to provide one-on-one advice and counsel to small businesses.

Research shows that small businesses are five times more likely to start if they get assistance from a government-supported program such as SCORE. This bill will require SCORE administrators to actively recruit and maintain volunteer mentors and track their success. Counselors will be required to have at least 10 years of similar experience.

Earlier this year, the chairwoman from the Manasota SCORE chapter, Jeannette Mills, testified in support of my bill before the small business Subcommittee on Rural Development, Entrepreneurship and Trade. She said, ``SCORE fulfills a vital role for America's small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs by providing much needed technical assistance. As you know, many small businesses continue to struggle with layoffs, access to capital, cash flow and overall management issues advise. SCORE has a proven track record of both being creative and saving jobs by improving business survival rates as well as accelerating small business formation.''

Here are some facts about SCORE for people that aren't aware. They have assisted in more than 523,000 people in the last year; they provided counseling to more than 8.5 million business owners; they've conducted more than 322,000 counseling sessions; they've received 3.2 million visitors to their Web site in just the last year; they have helped create more than 20,000 new small businesses.

I know from my own experience in the 1980s, I remember the U.S. Chamber came out with a statistic, as I remember today, 92 percent that start up small businesses fail in 5 years. But the IFA had a statistic during that time, the International Franchise Association, that 80 percent of businesses succeed. Because of that partnership, they could be in business for themselves, but not by themselves. That's what SCORE provides. We want a much higher probability of success, not a 92 percent failure rate. We want an 80 percent or better-type success rate for small businesses that will create jobs.

Also, currently SCORE has 389 chapter locations throughout the United States with over 10,000 volunteers nationwide.

I'd like to close by thanking my good friend, and her incredible leadership on small business, Chairwoman

Velazquez, as well as Ranking Member Graves for their support and assistance with this important bill.

Mr. Speaker, a new report says the health care bill that just passed the House will sharply reduce benefits to seniors. This report was done by President Obama's own administration. The Washington Post says it all. You can see it right here: ``This bill would sharply reduce benefits for some senior citizens and could jeopardize access to care for millions of others.''

My district has more than 267,000 seniors, the oldest congressional district in the country. I will not stand by while we devastate Medicare and raise taxes on individuals and small businesses. The report also warns that hospitals and nursing homes could stop taking Medicare all together.

I urge every Member of Congress to read this report so we can focus on real reform that does not punish our seniors.

Mr. Speaker, with unemployment over 10 percent, the worst thing we could do is raise taxes and expand government, but that's precisely what we're doing here today if we pass this bill.

People are fed up with Federal spending coming out of Washington, and they don't want higher taxes like the 8 percent job-killing tax increase on small businesses included in this bill, which create 70 percent of the jobs. This $1.2 trillion bill would also cut Medicare by $500 billion and extend health insurance to illegal immigrants. That's just plain wrong.

There's a far better approach, an alternative, which we will vote on today that will reduce costs without raising taxes or cutting Medicare. Now, that's a better prescription. It makes sense for America and Americans and a plan that we can afford.

Mr. Speaker, I returned yesterday from a 4-day visit to Afghanistan to meet with the troops and our military leaders as part of a bipartisan congressional delegation. It's clear to me that our soldiers are performing at a high level in a challenging environment. Their dedication and spirit is strong as they work to prevent al Qaeda from regaining a foothold. It's also clear that we need to increase the number of troops there to help them succeed. I believe firmly that this is the best means of protecting the United States and our people from terrorist attacks. There is no question that the Taliban is a destabilizing force with ties to al Qaeda. The Taliban is a threat to the national security of America. We need to provide the resources to our troops to ensure that their counterinsurgency strategy is successful. The new troop level should be determined by whatever is needed to accomplish the mission. Congress should give strong consideration to our military leaders in answering this question.

Let me close by saying that I'm very proud of all the men and women serving in Afghanistan. They are highly skilled, motivated, and I am confident that with the additional troops, they can achieve their mission. They are genuine heroes.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize a dedicated public servant, Sarasota National Cemetery Director Sandra Beckley, who will retire from 37 years of public service at the end of this year.

Ms. Beckley began her career with the U.S. Veterans' Administration in 1972 and has served as the Director of national cemeteries in Sarasota, Florida; Atlanta, Georgia; Pensacola, Florida; Mobile, Alabama; and Florence, South Carolina.

The veterans of Florida's Sun Coast, and their families, were fortunate that the VA appointed Sandra as Director of Sarasota National Cemetery on October 14, 2007. Since then, she has done an outstanding job overseeing the timely construction, dignified burial, and maintenance operations of this first-class facility.

She has worked extremely well with my office, the local veterans' community, and other stakeholders to ensure that veterans in the Sarasota-Bradenton area are memorialized with the honor and respect that they deserve, close to home.

Madam Speaker, I have very much enjoyed having had the opportunity to work with Sandra and will miss her strong, candid, and caring leadership. While we will miss her in Sarasota-Bradenton, we wish her all of the very best in her retirement, which she has richly earned.