Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, we have an interesting topic that we're going to be talking about and developing over the next hour. I'm here representing the Republican Study Committee, and we would like to talk about the subject of our economy and the nature of the problems that we are facing but also what kinds of solutions are possible. I'm going to be joined by a number of other congressmen this evening, and I'm going to invite them to jump into our discussion. And, Mr. Speaker, I hope that you find the hour interesting and enjoyable.

Now, one of the problems with having Congressman Akin here is I'm a former engineer and I get a little pedantic sometimes and I think it's important to exercise some discipline. And the discipline in this case is to define the nature of the problem in the economy in America.

So before you go offering legislation or try to fix something, it's good to know what it is you are trying to fix, and that will allow you to answer the important question whether or not it's going to work, which is not exactly a small question. Unfortunately, we have spent an awful lot of money without really defining the problem on solutions which have not worked. And so that's why we need to take a little bit of time to talk about what's going on.

As perhaps many people are aware, there are two quasi-governmental organizations called Freddie and Fannie, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and they, of course, have home mortgages which they take care of financially for more than half of the different people in America that have homes. So these are huge organizations, but they are not quite government, and they are not quite private. They are sort of in a gray zone, and they were created, ostensibly, to try to provide decent home loans for American citizens.

The problem, though, with Freddie and Fannie, because they are not really government, they were also outside of the administration's authority to be able to deal with them.

So Freddie and Fannie started to get more and more innovative over the past years, and they started to make all kinds of loans to all kinds of people. As those loans were made, what happened was there was not good control to make sure that the loans were being given to people that could actually afford to pay the loans.

In fact, we had, intentionally, Congress started to pass laws and put pressure on these organizations, as well as banks, to encourage them to make loans to people who could not afford to pay. Now, how that would be called compassionate, I am not quite sure, but Congress did that.

So what started to happen, in combination, as this was going on, you have the Federal Reserve lowers the interest rate, so money is easy to get, and all kinds of people jump on the housing bandwagon, and you create this real estate bubble, people taking out loans, which they don't have jobs or the finances to pay off these loans. And pretty soon, as we got toward the more recent years, this bubble explodes and all of these loans, people are starting to default on them.

Now, those loans had been packaged up and cut in pieces by Wall Street, sold all over the world. And now you have got one whale of a mess on your hands. Now, the question should be asked, then, well, didn't somebody see this coming, didn't somebody know that Freddie and Fannie were doing things that they shouldn't have done?

Well, in fact, in the New York Times, the President, President Bush, the headline on the article in the New York Times, in case anybody wants to look it up, it's on September 11, 2003, well before any of this came down. It says here the Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

So here you have the President saying Freddie and Fannie are out of control, we need to get regulations on

them. Now what concerns me is people are saying, they are saying, well, this is a failure of free enterprise. There's no failure of free enterprise here, this is a failure that starts right here in Congress, a failure of Congress to regulate these institutions which we created, and which went haywire by making all kinds of loans to people who shouldn't have had those loans, and now we are starting to pay the piper on it.

So this is the President, in 2003, The New York Times, not exactly a right-wing oracle, you follow the article through, and we come toward the end and it says these two entities, Freddie and Fannie Mae, are not facing any kind of financial crisis, said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts. Now this is interesting, because what this article is saying is that the Democrats were opposed to the further regulation of Freddie and Fannie.

They were opposed to it, and the man from this Chamber, who was on the floor no more than an hour ago, is quoted as saying, now, catch this, these two entities, this is Barney Frank talking, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not facing any kind of financial crisis, said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee.

So it wasn't that people didn't know, the President knew, but what it was, in the Senate, the legislation to try to regulate Freddie and Fannie was never passed. So we have, in a sense, a repeat of other financial crises because we in Congress did not do our homework, did not regulate and allowed these loans to be made.

Now, I am joined by some of my colleagues here and I am looking forward to chatting with them here. Just one thing I think that would also be helpful to know, we have defined the problem, and that is all of these loans that have been made and people got loans. That wasn't responsible, they couldn't pay the loans off. And so now these loans are being defaulted on.

That is happening enough. It is creating problems. The question is, how big a crisis is it? Well, just to give you some sense, about half of the loans that we expect are going to default have already happened. That says we have drunk about half the cup of poison and it has made the world's financial system sick, and we have got another half to go. Kind of an interesting thing.

I am joined by Congressman Lamborn from Colorado, a very wise and helpful influence in Congress, and I yield to the gentleman.

That was a very important point that you raised. That is if we are going to propose solutions, the question is does the proposed solution actually solve the problem or does it just make people politically happy. Are we really trying to specifically tailor the solution to something that is going to work.

Before we get into the specifics of various solutions, let's just talk for a minute. You know, the question is, a lot of times people think Congress has some sort of a magic lever here in the Chamber. And when we pull this lever, it just makes the economy accelerate or something. You know, they say we are going to stimulate the economy, whatever that is supposed to mean.

Really what Congress can do is we can either tax people or not tax people. We can take the revenue and slop it around in different ways. That's about all we can do. We don't create any wealth at all.

So when it comes to the economy, the tools we have are, to some degree, limited just because of the fact that Congress really doesn't create anything. What happens is it's the economy that either pulls itself forward or stagnates because we have created some set of laws that's messing it all up. So as we talk about solution, we have got to be careful, don't we.

It seems like to me, gentlemen, what you are recognizing is an inherent problem with this whole bailout concept. The whole idea of the bailout seems to be reward the person who did the wrong thing economically at the expense of the person who did the right thing.

With all due respect, gentlemen, I don't think you are being quite fair in that. What you are really saying is when you don't have a credit card you can pay off, you are saying I am going to use your credit card and take it. I mean, why should people from the State of Missouri or Colorado pay for California?

I just noted that the gentleman, Congressman Jordan from Ohio, is here, and I yield to him.

What you have just said seems to make a whole lot of common

sense. Just repeating what you said, the thing that's going to get us out of the recession is going to be the economy. It's going to be the small business people, the entrepreneurs, the hard working Americans. They are the ones who are productive, they create wealth, and they pull us up. You are saying that should be the direction of our solution.

So I think what I am hearing you say is we just can't spend our way out of this with a whole lot of government spending. That would be a little bit like grabbing your shoe laces and try to fly around the Chamber.

I see my good friend from Georgia is joining us for the discussion as well, Congressman Gingrey.

You are referring to the same guy that said there is no financial problem with Freddie and Fannie; is that correct?

Is a tranche and a slurp sort of the same, $350 billion, you are just kind of trancheing?

That does seem like something that's a little upside down, doesn't it.

The person that runs their household responsibly, the State that runs its budget responsibly, now we are supposed to be bailing out the banks instead. It is sort of an odd concept, but I didn't mean to interrupt you.

Before we list off a whole lot of these different specific solutions, if I could just cut in for a moment and sort of let's step back a little bit and be a little more professorial.

You know, we have this tranche, it sounds like something on an ACT test or something. You are a medical doctor, you are probably smart at knowing all the meanings of these words. But there are two general theories, aren't there, in economics.

One of them was basically called ``Keynesian'' because of this Little Lord Keynes that came up with this idea. It was something that FDR used to turn a recession into the Great Depression. Obviously it didn't work very well, and yet there are some people that still want to say, well, FDR got us out of the Great Depression using Keynesian economics. And the theory of Keynesian economics is take a whole lot of money away from all the taxpayers and go spend it all on a whole bunch of pork- type government projects. Maybe some are good, some are bad, dams across certain rivers to build hydroelectric plants, or building schools and stuff. It was politically popular stuff, but it didn't help. It made the Depression worse, and we ended up getting out of the Depression by getting into World War II.

Now, I would just as soon that we don't use that approach to get out of our depression this time around and get into another world war.

But that was called Keynesian economics. The idea was you just spend a whole lot of money and, wallah, something is going to happen. Well, if you think about that logically, we have got trillions of dollars in deficit, and if Keynesian economics worked we would be in a great economy right now. We have already spent much more money than we have. And yet that is one approach, and it has traditionally been something the Democrats do. It is politically popular, but it hasn't worked very well.

The other approach is what you are talking about, which is more commonly called ``supply side.'' It is the idea of not taking money, but allowing the businessmen and the people who create the jobs to invest and let that small business engine through productivity pull us out. That is what the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Jim Jordan, a fantastic lineup of some different proposals to try to solve the problem of where we are in the economy.

But we have a gentleman from Louisiana. I would yield to you if you would like to comment on this.

So the responsible people are saving money, yet the people in this Congress are talking about spending it when we don't have it. Go ahead. I yield.

Could you imagine if you were the Governor and you talked to your State of Louisiana and you said, hey, we are in economic hard times, so I have decided we are just going to spend a whole lot more billions of dollars. What would people do to you? Would they lock you up?

Do you know what happened to the first $350 billion? Is it your sense that in the last month or two that that has really given a whole lot of value for that $350 billion?

So we came up with a solution that cost a whole lot of money, when there was actually a much lower cost way to solve the problem. And we are in danger of doing the same thing again in the near future if we don't use the right kind of tools to turn things around. I hear what you are saying.

The gentleman from Ohio.

Unchartered waters.

So the gentleman, what you are saying is from the time this country was founded to the 1980s, we had not accumulated as much debt-- --

As we have done in the last 2 years. And you are talking $2 trillion.

If you allow me to interrupt you just a minute, let's put that in perspective. How much did the war in Iraq cost, that everybody was complaining about for the last 6 or 7 years?

It was about $800 billion. It is not even $1 trillion. So we got about $800 billion or $900 billion for the war in Iraq, and we are talking about just in a period less than a year, $1 trillion? This is an uncharted kind of area we are getting into.

Well, I really appreciate the Congressman. I know that you are disciplined in the wrestling sport. You understood that there are some rules that life works by, you work out hard, you wrestle a good match, and there are rules of economics as well.

We have a gentleman joining us tonight also, I think he is from Iowa, as I recall, just a bit to the west of Missouri, and Mr. King, Congressman King, I would recognize you if you want to talk a little bit along the same lines.

We have been talking about what you shouldn't do. The gentleman from Ohio is talking about the inherent unfairness, the injustice of basically taxing somebody to fix a problem they didn't create, of bailing out a big company when the little one doesn't get bailed out, this whole bailout fever, everybody with their hands out.

Now, is there a better kind of solution? What would a supply side kind of model be? What would you recommend? We don't want to sit here and criticize people that are proposing things without giving them an alternative that is better, and I think that is what you would like to talk about.

You put that in context, that is a lot more than the Marshall Plan adjusted for inflation. That is more than the War in Vietnam adjusted for inflation. It is more than the Louisiana Purchase. I mean, it is more than anything we have bought before.

That is a very interesting proposal that you have and one that a lot of economists are taking a very serious look at and one that is really rising in popularity I think with a lot of scholarly people, Congressmen, and I appreciate your doing it.

I would like to dig into one little detail of what you said.

What we're not talking about is a lot of fancy theory here. This is stuff that's been tried. And we know that excessive government spending, way beyond our budget, has created a Great Depression and all kind of other trouble.

But what we're talking about, instead, is allowing small businesses to invest. And so, when we did that, we actually did that in the first quarter of 2003. And I have a series of graphs here that show the result of doing that.

Let's just take a look at this: The black vertical line on this graph is the first quarter, or part way into 2003.

The second quarter. I stand corrected. The second quarter of 2003 is the black line that you see here. And this first chart is Gross Domestic Product of the United States.

Now, if you take a look at the things on the left side of the chart that are in red, this includes a bunch of kind of nice tax cuts, which give better deductions for having kids and a lot of feel good kind of stuff. So it's not just any tax cut that makes a difference.

Your point is you're investing in productivity. When you get to the second quarter of 2003, we did one major tax cut, and that was dividend and capital gains, which immediately put money back into the pockets. It's not really put money back in. We just never took it out of the pockets of the small businessmen who made investments and took risk.

And take a look at what happens on the average. This is going all the way out to 2007. The average Gross Domestic Product, 1.1 percent before that tax cut, after it you see that the averages jumped a couple of percent on Gross Domestic Product. Now, that's an interesting chart.

Let's take a look at the next one. What happens to go along with Gross Domestic Product?

Let's take a look at jobs. This is job creation. Everything below the line means we're losing jobs, as we are right now in the economy. The second quarter of 2000--oh, you were right, May 2003. You take a look and you see all of this job growth. An average loss of 99,000 jobs in the first couple of years, as we inherited the recession in 2001, and a gain of 147,000 jobs following. That is the effect of letting small business, turn them loose and let them be productive.

Now, here's the thing that I find most amazing, and that is the fact that when you do this, the government cuts taxes; and guess what happens to the money we have, the revenue?

Well, take a look at the third chart. There again, May of 2003, a low point in Federal revenue. As the economy gets going, Federal revenue takes off like a skyrocket. So what do you solve?

Everybody is more wealthy. There are more jobs, and not only Federal, but State governments have more money to spend.

To your point, gentlemen, I thought some specifics though. This isn't theory. This is what JFK did, this is what Ronald Reagan did, and this is what happened under the Bush administration with that key tax cut, not just any tax cut, but the one that empowers Americans and gets the government's big fist out of their pocketbooks.

I yield to the gentleman. Continue.

I don't want to be any kind of socialist, gentleman.

Congressman King, I think you've just given us a rather eloquent description of just basically saying, free enterprise does work, doesn't it?

We have a fantastic doctor from Georgia, and I would yield to you if you had a thought on the subject here.

I'll yield to you, and then we'll go to the gentleman from Louisiana.

You know, we like to get into these numbers a little bit because we have to study it and live with it day by day. But let's try to make this practical for the average person on the street.

What we're talking about is, instead of treating a recession, we're talking about, if we don't do this right, we're going to create another depression. We're talking about an extremely serious condition for our country; is that correct?

I think I'm the one supposed to do that. Congressman Scalise from Louisiana, we'd love to hear your thoughts too along the same lines.

And thank you very much. I appreciate that, Congressman Lamborn.

Congressman Scalise, did you say that basically we have already gone from 700,000 now to a trillion? Is that already that high?

So it's our grandchildren's money we're starting to spend.

Now, Congressman Scalise, you made a point that I think, and I think it is, it almost seemed counter-intuitive to me when I first heard this before I came to Congress, the idea that the government could actually cut taxes and raise more revenue. Doesn't that seem like making water go uphill?

Congressman Scalise, I don't know if you were aware of it, but did you ever hear the story of what the Irish did? Their economy was in trouble about 15, 20 years ago, and they decided they were going to cut their corporate taxes really to the bone. They really cut the corporate taxes.

Now, in America we have the second highest corporate tax rate in the world. The Irish went the other way, cut their corporate taxes, and their economy took off like a skyrocket. And they've got more businesses starting and jobs, and their Gross Domestic Product has done fantastically.

There's a perfect case study of somebody who used this odd principle that by cutting taxes you can actually are increase revenue. Here's a chart of it. You can see we cut the taxes. Everybody said oh, the Republicans have ruined the economy because we cut taxes. But take a look at what happens to revenue.

Here is the way I was thinking about this. Tell me where it makes sense to you.

Let's say you're king for a day and your job is to put a tax on a loaf of bread. So you start thinking. You say, ``I can put a penny on it. Well then, I'd have to sell a lot of bread to get a bunch of money or I could charge $100 for a loaf of bread, and then maybe nobody would buy any.''

Well, wouldn't commonsense say that there is something between a penny and $100 that's sort of the optimum at which you can tax it? When you increase the tax, you actually get less money. I think that is what's going on here, which is, if we cut the taxes, the economy takes off, and we end up with more government revenue. That's exactly your point, and that's the whole idea of supply side economics.

You know, the Congressman from Louisiana is fortunate to have somebody who understands that basic idea, and that is the proposal that we're making. We're not trying to dump on somebody else. We're just saying, look, this massive spending bailout fever just is not going to solve the problem. Anybody who runs a household knows that if you're in trouble financially that you don't just start spending money.

As Ronald Reagan said, it's not fair to say it's like a drunken sailor, because a drunken sailor is spending his own money.

I will.

The little trouble with what you're saying is that it requires people to be responsible, doesn't it?

I mean, in politics, it's nice just to tell somebody, It's okay to be irresponsible. We'll just bail you out. The only trouble is that, when you allow that to grow to a certain level, the whole country crashes.

So we're basically saying that there are two courses before us. We're standing at a crossroads.

One of them is the old Keynesian theory that we're just going to spend a ton of money and slop it into everybody's pockets. The people who get the money may like us, but the whole economy is going to go down, not just into a recession but into a depression.

The other alternative is to get the government out of the way and allow the small businessman to make the investment to drive the economy.

Those are the two choices before us. We're not trying to criticize the Democrat Party for the past things--for creating the problem by making loans to people who shouldn't have gotten the loans, for refusing to regulate Freddie and Fanny--but now it is their responsibility because the voters have put them in charge, and they're going to have to take one of these two courses. We're standing here today, saying: You need to choose the responsible course, which is empowering small business to create those jobs.

I will.

Congressman Scalise, that is a great summary. We appreciate the wisdom that you've brought for us from Louisiana.

I am going to yield to a gentleman who ran his own small business successfully for many years, the gentleman from Iowa and my very good friend.

Do you have some sense from a small businessman's perspective, Congressman King?

They were politically popular, weren't they?

Congressman King, we're kind of coming down the final stretch here.

We've had a chance to talk in some very broad terms about, first of all, what created the problem. The problem was created by this silly legislation, largely, that came from this floor over a period of different generations of politicians who encouraged people to be irresponsible and to take out debt that they couldn't pay.

Now, I don't know if that might have been sold as compassion, but I don't think it's compassionate to sell a man a loan that he can't pay back, that puts his whole family under stress as they labor under the economics of not being able to pay a loan.

So what happens is you get more and more people taking these loans, and the people who are writing the loans don't care because it used to be that a bank had to live with the bad loans they made, but these loans are just passed on to Freddie and Fanny, and you know the government takes care of all of those loans. So we make all of these loans that don't work, and pretty soon these things start sliding down the wall. The tragedy is half of them are still due. So that then throws the whole world economy into a shock.

So we're left here today at a crossroads. We are left at a fork. What are we going to do about this?

The irony is that the people who largely created this mess, particularly the senior Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, say Freddie and Fanny don't have any problems. Now the whole world economy is on its knees, and they're in charge of fixing it. They've got a choice. They can continue to spend a whole lot of money, which we've already spent a lot of money. If that were going to work, we would be in a great situation. The other thing is that they're going to have to trust the American economy to pull us out.

I see we have my distinguished friend from Colorado, Congressman Lamborn. Did you have a thought?

Well, I appreciate your joining us, and I also appreciate the gentleman from Iowa. I think we've just got about a minute or so left.

I think the thing that we have to walk away with is that the cost of going from a recession to a depression could be severe. In the days of Jimmy Carter, things were a whole lot worse than they are right now. They had double-digit inflation, and they had double-digit unemployment. We aren't quite that far yet.

I would like to thank my friend from Iowa, Congressman King, Congressman Lamborn, also Dr. Gingrey from Georgia, Congressman Scalise from Louisiana, and also Congressman Jordan from Ohio, who have all joined us here this evening.

Congressman King, the last word.

Well, it sounds to me a little bit like what the French philosopher Bastiat wrote. He was a legislator. He called it ``institutionalized theft.'' If a thug hits you on the head and takes your wallet, we call it ``stealing,'' but what happens when the government takes money that legitimately it should not be taking? We call that ``institutionalized theft'' or sometimes ``socialism.''

Thank you very much, gentlemen, for joining me. I really hope that this has been informative.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor one of our brave men and women in uniform. LTC Andrew W. Brown, United States Air Force Reserve, was inducted into the Parkway Alumni Association Hall of Fame in St. Louis on November 15, 2008. The Parkway School District is located in my district and Lieutenant Colonel Brown graduated from Parkway West High School in 1982.

Among the many career highlights that recommended him for induction into the Parkway Hall of Fame is his service in Afghanistan. As a flight surgeon with the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing, Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan, then Major Brown performed and assisted in over 100 combat casualty surgeries and procedures from 22 April to 31 August 2005. Under severe time constraints and throughout the day and night, his involvement saved the lives of numerous United States, Coalition, Afghan Army and Police forces. Lieutenant Colonel Brown was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal on 17 April 2006 for this outstanding achievement.

I am honored to represent Lieutenant Colonel Brown's family in the United States Congress and to honor him today.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize one of our Missouri of University Chancellors. Several weeks ago, Dr. Thomas Friedrich George was honored by the University of Szeged in Hungary. Chancellor George was awarded the honorary title Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Szeged in recognition of his outstanding and cooperative scientific work that has been carried out in support of the University of Szeged over many years.

While serving as Chancellor at the University of Missouri--St. Louis, Chancellor George also serves as a professor of chemistry and physics and researcher in chemical, materials and laser physics at the University.

This recognition of Chancellor George is not only a significant personal achievement; it is also an honor for the University of Missouri System and the St. Louis region.

I am pleased to be able to honor Chancellor George today. He is a shining example of the great leadership we have in Missouri and I know all of my colleagues join me in congratulating him on this distinguished honor.

My colleagues, a week ago we were approached by Secretary Paulson, and he told us that there was a crisis and that he had a solution. He gave us the horns of a dilemma, two sharp, shiny points that we could impale ourselves on. One, that the financial system was going to collapse and

implode, and the sky was going to fall. Certainly we wouldn't want to choose that. The other, we could write a $700 billion blank check. Those were our two choices.

Reasonable people started to ask there has got to be a better alternative than this, and at every turn, we saw a resistance to a clear definition of the problem and an ability to talk about the different alternatives or possibilities.

Now, one of the things that is very dangerous in problem solving is not being careful in defining what the real problem is. What we find when we look back and start to talk to other authorities is that this is not the first time this kind of thing has happened, and that it did not need $700 billion. It needed very little public money to solve the problem back in the Reagan days in the savings and loan crisis.

So what we have before us, and our leadership has led us into, first into the Pelosi Congress not allowing the committee process to operate properly; and, second, by some Republican leadership also trying to force us onto one of these two alternatives, is a solution that doesn't fix the problem. Mark my words, that if we pass this bill, in another couple of months we will be back here with a lot of failed banks and say, oh, my goodness, something is wrong. The banks are failing.

The problem is, this doesn't solve the problem. It's nice to take a bullet for the team if it's going to do some good, but this isn't going to solve the problem. All the people I hear in favor of this say we have got to give up some principal in order to save principal. You never save principal by giving it up.

Madam Speaker, in accordance with House Republican Conference standards, and Clause 9 of Rule XXI, I submit the following member requests for the record regarding H.R. 2638, The Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act.

Project: Heuristic Internet Protocol Packet Inspection Engine.

Account: Army, RDT&E.

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: TechGuard Security, LLC.

Address of Requesting Entity: 743 Spirit 40 Park Drive, Chesterfield,

Madam Speaker, it was my great pleasure to serve this year as the Congressional Co-chair for the House of Representatives for National Bible Week, November 23 though November 30, 2008.

The Bible was foundational to the development of our country. The English Puritans came to the New World to follow the Bible according to the convictions of their own consciences. Of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, 24 had what today would be considered Bible college or seminary educations. Only a few years later, in 1782, Congress itself authorized the printing of the Bible.

The Bible has found its way into everything from casual conversation--expressions like ``by the sweat of your brow'' and ``the salt of the earth'' and myriad others all come from Scripture--to the landscape of America. From Corinth, Maine to Bethel, Alaska, the Bible has marked our national map.

More than any map, however, the Bible has marked who we are as a people. Earlier generations of Americans almost inhaled the words of Scripture as they inhaled the air. To read the inaugural addresses of our Presidents, from George Washington to George W. Bush, is to read repeated allusions to or quotations of biblical texts.

The Bible speaks to the uniqueness of man--that we are all made in the image and likeness of God. It speaks of the greatness of God--that He is the object of true worship, the fount of all blessings, and the Redeemer, Lawgiver, Friend, Savior and Judge.

Historically, we have been a people of the Book. We lose our allegiance to and our reliance on the Bible to our grave peril.

The Bible can be hard to understand. Yet as the theologian R.C. Sproul has written, ``We fail in our duty to study God's Word not so much because it is difficult to understand, not so much because it is dull and boring, but because it is work.''

And it is worthwhile work. There can be nothing nobler than seeking not only to know the Bible's teachings but also to know the Bible's God.

It was President Lincoln who said, ``I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated to us through this book.'' Or, as Jesus Himself remarked, ``Search the Scriptures . . . for they testify of Me.''

Today, Madam Speaker, I echo Abraham Lincoln's comments and urge my colleagues and all Americans to reacquaint themselves with the Bible. As literature, it is unmatched. As philosophy, it is unparalleled. And as truth, it will make you free.

I commend the National Bible Association for its outstanding work to bring the Bible to the attention of all Americans of every faith and creed. And I am humbled by the opportunity to serve in such a way as to draw attention to this most precious of books.

Mr. Speaker, I would comment that one of the things that the public would really like to see in Congress is for us to come down here, put our partisan differences aside and actually solve some problems. We don't always do a good job in that regard on many topics. But this is quite an exception today. And I think it's a time that the public can be very thankful for Chairman Skelton from the great State of Missouri and also for Ranking Member Hunter. Both of them have rolled their sleeves up and have put together an authorization bill that actually deals with the problems that face our country and have a very credible solution.

This is a ``hats off'' for people who've worked very hard. We're very thankful to have a chance to get the bill passed, and it's that tone of our leadership that is willing to solve problems instead of squabbling like a bunch of cats. This is a very bright day. We're thankful for that leadership.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor a man of passion, spirit and service--former Kirkwood Mayor Mike Swoboda, who struggled against incredible odds after tragedy and on September 6, 2008, was released from his suffering and went Home.

Mike Swoboda will be remembered for his innovation in the city of Kirkwood, Missouri, creating ``Mayor for a Day'' program for youths, his endless enthusiasm for all things Kirkwood, and his years of faithful service. He was a man of hope and optimism who loved the people he served. He will be remembered for striving to do great things and as a man of his word.

I want to extend my condolences to the family of Mike Swoboda and echo family and friends in saying ``He will always be remembered.''

America by this time understands that we have not been developing American energy. There are three things required to develop American energy. First, you have to have natural resources. America is blessed with a great supply and diversity of natural resources.

The second thing you have to have to develop American energy is the technology to be able to develop energy in a scientific and an environmentally friendly way. We are very clever with our technology. We have that in America.

And the third thing that you need is political will, the desire to develop American energy; and in that regard this Congress has failed. The Pelosi Congress refuses to put the gears in motion and take action.

Now, I can understand if you like $4 a gallon gasoline, you prefer to see it go to $6, that is a political policy. If that is what the Democrats want to do, if that is what Pelosi wants, fine.

But what we have on the floor today is a sham. It pretends to be an energy bill and pretends to say it is going to drill, and it doesn't. It has nothing in there for clean nuclear and nothing to allow real drilling in Alaska. We have 748 sites to drill, every one blocked by a lawsuit. There is no reform in this bill. This is a sham.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 6168. It's a bill that I introduced to honor the life of Drew W. Weaver by designating the post office in St. Charles, Missouri, as the Lance Corporal Drew W. Weaver Post Office Building.

A resident of St. Charles, Missouri, Lance Corporal Drew Weaver was part of the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division,

1st Marine Expeditionary Force. On February 21, 2007, Lance Corporal Weaver died while conducting combat operations in the al Anbar province in Iraq. As Captain Mark C. Brown noted, Drew was ``known for his enthusiasm and his ability to motivate people around him.''

Drew's contribution to his country was honored by his community when hundreds of people showed up to his memorial service and procession. A graduate of St. Charles High School, friends and family of Drew remember him as an energetic young man who was eager to serve his country. Ryan Hanson, his best friend and a fellow serviceman, said, ``Drew loved what he was doing and was proud of what he was doing for the Marine Corps.''

As the father of two Marines, one of whom has served in Iraq, it is a privilege to stand here today to honor one of our fallen heroes. Drew's commitment and dedication to his country is a shining example of how our military men and women are the finest our Nation has to offer.

His and his family's sacrifice should serve as a reminder to all that the freedom we enjoy as Americans is not free, but the result of tremendous bravery and selfless sacrifice of men and women willing to put themselves in harm's way for freedom's cause.

As Reverend James Benz noted during Drew's funeral, ``I think we can learn from them that the freedom we enjoy in this country is precious, that it is special, and it must be preserved sometimes at great personal cost.''

Our Nation will be forever indebted to Lance Corporal Drew Weaver. Madam Speaker, I ask that my colleagues join me today in honoring Lance Corporal Drew Weaver.

Vote ``yes'' on H.R. 6168.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 6169, a bill I introduced to honor the life of Peter J. Navarro by designating the post office in Baldwin, Missouri, as the ``Specialist Peter J. Navarro Post Office Building.''

A resident of Wildwood, Missouri, Specialist Peter Navarro was part of Company A, 2nd Battalion, 70th Armor Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division. On December 13, 2005, Specialist Navarro was one of four soldiers killed when a roadside bomb detonated near their Humvee during combat operations in Taji, Iraq.

A graduate of Lafayette High School, Peter declined his acceptance at Truman State University so he could join the Army right after graduation.

When Peter returned home for his younger brother's funeral, he was faced with the undeniable risks of serving his country; however, he returned to Iraq, telling friends and family ``they need me there.'' Peter was a dedicated soldier willing to give the ultimate sacrifice to protect his country and the men and women who reside there.

As Peter's father, Jose Navarro, said, ``He cared for the soldiers he worked with. He would do anything for his friends. And he told me he believed in the mission that he was involved in.''

As a father of two marines, one of whom has served in Iraq, it is a privilege to stand here today to honor one of our fallen soldiers. Peter's commitment and dedication to his country is a shining example of how our military men and women are the finest our Nation has to offer.

His and his family's sacrifice should serve as a reminder to all that the freedom we enjoy as Americans is not free, but the result of the tremendous bravery and selfless service of men and women willing to put themselves in harm's way for freedom's cause.

Our Nation will be forever indebted to Specialist Peter Navarro. Mr. Speaker, I ask that my colleagues join me today in honoring Peter by voting ``yes'' on H.R. 6169.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

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

I agree completely with my friend from St. Louis here, and H.R. 6575 makes a whole lot of sense.

When we face direct threats, it's easy to assume that the best thing to do is to conceal, protect, or hide information, and, in fact, it's probably the worst thing that we can do. That's what the 9/11 Commission decided as it reviewed the American classification process that existed before the 2001 attacks. This is a quotation:

``Current security requirements nurture over-classification and excessive compartmentalization of information among agencies. Each agency's incentive structure opposes sharing, with risks, criminal, civil, and internal administrative sanctions, but few rewards for sharing information. No one has to pay the long-term costs of over- classifying information though these costs, even in literal financial terms, are substantial.''

The result is that the United States for a long time has tried to protect a huge body of secrets using an incomprehensibly complex system of classifications and safeguard requirements. Worst still, this body of secrets is growing and no one can say with any degree of certainty how much information is classified, how much needs to be declassified, or whether the Nation's real secrets can be adequately protected in a system so bloated it often does not distinguish between the critically important and the merely embarrassing.

Our classification practices have been highly subjective, inconsistent, and susceptible to abuse. Over-classification often confuses national security with bureaucratic, political, or diplomatic convenience.

With this legislation we intend to reduce improper and over- classification and consequently increasing government-wide information sharing and the availability of information to the public. We accomplish this by instructing the Archivist to promulgate regulations which will standardize decisions on the classification documents.

The legislation also establishes systems for challenging whether information ought to be classified and instructs agency IGs to randomly audit classified information to assess whether proper classification decisions are actually being made.

Finally, this legislation creates a record attached to each classified document stating who made the decision to classify. The current system of organizational silos restricts the free flow of information from agency to agency. This system reduces this Nation's overall security by making sure no one gets a view of the entire mosaic. The legislation presents a government-wide solution to protect what must be protected but requires sharing what ought to be shared.

Mr. Speaker, our future safety depends on moving from a ``need to know'' culture to a ``need to share'' culture. This legislation will help us reach that goal. I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Archbishop Raymond Burke who, for the last 4 years, has served as the head of the archdiocese in St. Louis. Recently, Archbishop Burke was appointed to the position of the Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura in Rome.

During his short tenure in St. Louis, Archbishop Burke helped to revitalize the Catholic community. Under his leadership, the seminary has continued to flourish with respect to the enrollment of the archdiocesan seminarians. I have no doubt that any man with Archbishop Burke's firm convictions and leadership capabilities will flourish wherever he goes.

I congratulate Archbishop Burke on his recent appointment to the position of the Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. It's my hope that St. Louis will always be a place he can call home.

Those of us who know him personally know him as a guileless man and a committed defender of truth. Very best wishes, Archbishop Burke, in your new position.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 6208, a bill that I introduced to honor the life of Matthew P. Pathenos by designating the post office in Chesterfield, Missouri, as the Lance Corporal Matthew P. Pathenos Post Office Building.

A resident of Ballwin, Missouri, Lance Corporal Matthew P. Pathenos was part of the 3rd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division of the Marine Forces Reserve. On February 7, 2007, Lance Corporal Pathenos was killed during combat operations in the Anbar province of Iraq.

Matthew was often described by friends and family as a friendly young

man who always had a joke to tell, had a smile on his face. Matthew decided to join the military in order to follow his older brother into the country's service with the hope of helping those who could not help themselves. Matthew's then girlfriend, Erin, calls Lance Corporal Pathenos her hero and wishes that she might one day ``possess a fraction of his bravery and discipline.''

As a father of two marines, one of whom has served in Iraq, it's a privilege to stand here today to honor one of our fallen soldiers. Matthew's commitment and dedication to his country is a shining example of how our military men and women are the finest the Nation has to offer. He and his family's sacrifice should serve as a reminder to all that the freedom we enjoy as Americans is not free but it is the result of the tremendous bravery and self sacrifice of men and women willing to put themselves in harm's way for the cause of freedom.

Throughout the many, many years of our Nation's existence, America has been unique at one particular regard and in many particular regards. America is the only Nation that has a political and religious motto, a code that we go by. It's expressed and it was expressed as the reason why we fought our war to gain our independence in that great sentence. It says that we believe that there are certain inalienable rights that come from God. Among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The sentence goes on to say that governments are instituted among men to protect those basic God-given rights. That has been the reason why we have gone to war, to protect our God-given rights down through the ages, in the War of Independence and other wars as well, and this war is no different.

Matthew Pathenos understood in his heart and in his gut the basic idea that he was defending his family and his homeland.

And so he joins the ranks of those who are still on patrol, whose names we will regard. He joins the ranks of the people who made the ultimate sacrifice; that you and I and future generations of Americans may go free. And in that regard, we honor him by naming this post office after Matthew Pathenos. Please join me by voting ``yes'' on H.R. 6208.

Madam Speaker, America has a problem because we have not been developing our American energy. The tip of the iceberg is particularly obvious now at $4 a gallon, but there were warning signs-- nuclear reactors, 1960s vintage technology, no new refineries sited in 30 years. That's going back to the Vietnam era. We have not been developing American energy. Why? It is not because we don't have American energy. We have plenty of varieties of American energy that we could be developing, and it is not because we don't have the technology or the innovation to be able to develop American energy.

No. Unfortunately, this is strictly a matter of will. It is a decision, and it is strictly a party-line decision.

Over the last 8 years, Democrats on all kinds of votes on energy have voted 90 percent of the time not to develop American energy. Republicans have voted 90 percent too. Whether it is recycling nuclear fuel, drilling in ANWR or in the Outer Continental Shelf, we need to agree that the time has come to develop American energy.