Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I find it ironic that we are here today creating one more commission to study a problem and report back with possible solutions some time in the future when we could be taking action right now today that would reduce our trade deficit and make a real difference for American workers.

One of the findings in this bill states the problem very clearly: ``While the United States has one of the most open economies in the world, the United States faces significant tariff and non-tariff trade barriers with its trading partners.''

For example, over 90 percent of Panamanian and Colombian exports enter the U.S. duty free. Additionally, the average Korean tariff for U.S. exporters is more than four times the average tariff that Korean products face in the United States market.

We could slash these high tariffs on U.S. exports and level the playing field for American workers by passing the current pending Free Trade Agreements with these three nations.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to continue the bipartisan tradition since World War II of supporting trade and call for passage of the pending FTAs with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. If we really want to create jobs, pass these trade agreements. If we want to increase exports, pass these trade agreements. If we want to reduce the trade deficit, pass these trade agreements. We don't need another commission; we need action.

Mr. Speaker, the Federal Government must do more to dismantle Mexican drug trafficking organizations operating marijuana plantations on our Nation's Federal lands. This is a severe and growing problem in the northern California congressional district I represent. These traffickers pose a threat to the visitors of the national parks and forests, and local law enforcement, and the Federal Government is fundamentally responsible for addressing it. I have introduced a resolution that I hope will garner sufficient support to focus more attention and begin a process of greater cooperation and coordination among the agencies responsible for protecting our Federal lands and the citizens who want to enjoy them.

Mr. Speaker, it's essential that we stay focused on addressing this important issue.

Madam Speaker, the Federal deficit has topped $1 trillion, and there are still 3 months remaining in the fiscal year. Spending is out of control, and the President and Democratic leadership have shown no sign of slowing down. Americans are still asking, Where are the jobs? Unemployment stands at near 10 percent nationally, and the administration's massive spending increases are harming the small businesses that are so crucial to our job creation. President Clinton's former chief of staff has said, ``The debt is like a cancer . . . it is going to destroy the country from within.''

Madam Speaker, we must reject Big Government and embrace fiscal responsibility and the pro-small business policies that have guided our Nation out of troubled times in the past.

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

Mr. Speaker, the majority is again bringing to the floor more fixes to the fatally flawed health care overhaul. The health care law was riddled with errors; some were oversights, the likes of which we are here today to address. However, the majority has failed to rectify the fundamentally flawed policies that threaten our economic stability and America's health care, all the while driving Federal and State budgets down a further unsustainable path.

Mr. Speaker, where is the fix for the up to 117 million Americans with health insurance from their employers that, by the administration's own estimates, will not be able to keep the plan they have and like? That promise was repeatedly made by President Obama and the Democratic majority to assure to the American people that health care overhaul would not force them into a one-size-fits-all government- approved insurance plan. Unfortunately, this has repeatedly proven to be false.

Where is the fix for the millions of small businesses that will be forced to file 1099 tax forms for each business from which they purchase more than $600 worth of goods and services during this year? The National Federation of Independent Business, NFIB, describes these new requirements as crippling, and they will further divert investment away from jobs, which should be our number one concern.

Mr. Speaker, where is the fix for seniors whose Medicare coverage is threatened by the health care overhaul? Medicare's own actuaries found that the $500 billion in Medicare cuts could jeopardize access to care for seniors. Furthermore, the actuaries predict millions of seniors will lose their Medicare plan because massive cuts to the program will result in ``about 50 percent'' of seniors no longer being in a plan.

Unfortunately, the merits of today's legislation pale in comparison to the merits of addressing the needs of the millions of Americans losing the plan they have and like, the small businesses facing burdensome new costs and regulations, and seniors relying on Medicare. When will these pressing needs be addressed?

Mr. Speaker, while I support the bill before us, it is not enough. We must move beyond mere technical corrections and fix the fundamental flaws of the Democrats' health care law by repealing it and replacing it with solutions that work.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry).

Mr. Speaker, I strongly support passage of H.R. 689. This legislation is the result of a collaborative and bipartisan effort to limit government bureaucracy and improve the management of federal lands in Northern California. For years, many of my constituents raised concerns over difficulties in dealing with two federal agencies in order to use the Chappie-Shasta Off-Highway Vehicle Area in Shasta County, California. Though the Bureau of Land Management has managed the majority of this area, Forest Service holdings within the area have led to such issues as duplicative permitting and even different opening dates for the same area. This situation has led to increasing frustration from thousands of users who come from across California and elsewhere to enjoy this OHV area.

This simple legislation provides a commonsense solution by allowing the BLM to consolidate the OHV area while the Forest Service will benefit by receiving jurisdiction over small tracts of BLM land that are already contiguous to the Shasta-Trinity National Forest.

This bill first passed the House by unanimous consent, and after a few technical changes, again received unanimous support from the Senate. Concurrence with the Senate's changes will finally allow for more efficient management of the Chappie-Shasta OHV Area and greater enjoyment of its users. This legislation represents a win-win for taxpayers and their enjoyment of our federal lands. I thank Senators Feinstein and Boxer for their work in supporting this effort and I urge my colleagues to support it as well.

Madam Speaker, for the first time since 1974, the House has failed to pass a budget resolution. Instead of making tough decisions, congressional Democrats have chosen to keep their heads in the sand. A problem won't go away just by ignoring it. It will require real leadership and a commitment to fiscal discipline to tackle the out-of-control spending and debt that threatens our economic prosperity. Failure to even propose a budget fundamentally means that congressional Democrats have no plan and are content to ignore our skyrocketing debt.

Madam Speaker, the American people know it's a failure of leadership to ignore the massive tax increases and the crushing burden of debt Washington is leaving our children and grandchildren.

I thank my friend from Wisconsin for yielding.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court delivered a victory for our constitutional freedoms by upholding the right of individual citizens to keep and bear arms. To fully honor the Second Amendment, we must also be vigilant against regulations that place unnecessary burdens on manufacturers of guns and ammunition. The requirement for manufacturers to pay Federal excise tax biweekly is costly and does not improve tax compliance or public safety.

H.R. 5552 is a commonsense bill that doesn't add to the deficit and will help ensure law-abiding Americans have access to American-made firearms. It is supported by the NRA and a number of hunting and conservation groups.

I urge the passage of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to applaud the inclusion in this bill of a provision that enhances information sharing between the IRS and State prisons.

Recently, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration issued a report, finding that at least 1,295 prisoners received $9.1 million in home buyer tax credits for homes they reported purchasing while incarcerated. We must put a stop to this fraud.

I am a long-time supporter of increased data sharing among agencies to ensure that prisoners do not illegally obtain taxpayer-funded benefits. In the 1996 welfare reform bill, I championed a program that authorized incentive payments to penal institutions for providing information on newly incarcerated individuals. This data sharing

gave the Social Security Administration the information they needed to prevent checks from going to jailed beneficiaries, which saved taxpayers over $5 billion.

Currently, the IRS shares information with Federal prisons but not with State prisons. The bill before us would change that, and I support its passage.

General Leave

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

For the fourth time in 6 months, Democrats' inability to properly manage the Medicare program is causing doctors to confront a 21 percent cut in their Medicare reimbursement rates. In fact, this cut went into effect on June 1, forcing Medicare to pay claims for physicians' services with the 21 percent cut. In practical terms, this means that for a standard office visit, physicians are now being paid $8 less than they received in 2007. This is unacceptable and irresponsible.

As a result of the Democrats' failure to address this issue in a timely manner, tens of millions of taxpayer dollars will be required to reprocess these claims and send new checks to doctors, all because the majority Democrats could not finish their work on time.

Physicians' practices, like most small businesses, are hurt by the dereliction of duty. Dr. Joel Bolen from Montgomery, Alabama, said about the delayed payments, quote, ``We have already eliminated one staff position, and that has resulted in a major reduction in some services.'' Dr. Jen Brull from Plainville, Kansas, had to juggle a $10,000 temporary drop in revenue while claims were held up when payments were delayed for 15 days in April of this year, a major stress on a small practice.

Senior citizens have been hurt as well. Earlier this week, one of my constituents visited my office in Redding, California, to share his story. His doctor is not accepting any more Medicare patients until Congress deals with the 21 percent cut. As a result, he has been forced to postpone an essential surgery.

The new president of the American Medical Association, Dr. Cecil Wilson, said, ``This is no way to run a major health coverage program. Already the instability caused by repeated short-term delays is taking its toll.'' The newspaper Politico declared that ``never before has Congress allowed such a deep Medicare cut to go into effect at this scale.''

The legislation before us provides physicians with a 6-month reprieve of the 21 percent cut by providing them a 2.2 percent rate increase through November. But after November, the 21 percent cut returns. And 1 month after that, the cut goes even deeper, totaling 26 percent in January. Perhaps my friends on the other side of the aisle believe this will be someone else's problem in December.

Mr. Speaker, ironically, the bill before us today uses the same bill number as the Democrats' health bill that passed the House in November of last year. It's ironic, because Republicans argued for months that the Democrats should address the flawed Medicare physician payment formula in their health care overhaul. After all, if they could find more than one-half trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare, you would think they could find a couple dollars to fix the SGR; except, they didn't, allowing them to shield the true cost of their trillion-dollar government takeover of health care. It's one of the many reasons we should replace that flawed law with reform Americans can afford, and then we can address a true long-term fix for our doctors.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite).

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Roe), who is also a physician.

Just in response, we as Republican last November had a 4- year fix that was paid for, and I might mention that the legislation that the gentleman was referring to that we opposed had a $200 billion deficit on it, and that's why we opposed it.

Mr. Speaker, while I intend to support this bill and urge its passage, our work does not end here. We must find a long-term, stable and fiscally responsible solution to this problem.

I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus).

Madam Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise to commend both Sierra Nevada Brewery and the inspirational career of its founder, Ken Grossman on its 30th Anniversary. Ken is an outstanding model of the modern American entrepreneurial spirit.

Thirty years ago, Ken began a modest brewing company in the town of Chico, California. Named after the beloved California Mountains, the Sierra Nevada Brewery has since matured into the tenth largest brewery in the United States.

Ken's specialty beers receive constant praise for their exceptional quality. Through the years his brews have collected an impressive array of national and international awards. His award portfolio includes gold medal recognition from competitions in Munich as well as the Great American Beer Festival in Colorado.

The Sierra Nevada Brewery, by incorporating smart and sustainable manufacturing practices, provides an excellent working example of the ideal that economic success and environmental protection go hand in hand. Recently, the brewery expanded its solar panel facility, making it one of the largest private solar facilities in the nation. This expansion allows the brewery to produce the majority of its own energy needs. The brewery also engages in resource conservation and waste diversion through the installation of instruments that reuse the brewery's wastewater and methane gas. Additionally, his brewery has a near perfect recycling record, diverting more than 98 percent of its annual waste away from overused landfills.

Sierra Nevada Brewery has had a tremendous impact on the local economy. With approximately $100 million in annual sales, Sierra Nevada Brewery has been able to create over three hundred and fifty jobs. Sierra Nevada Brewery has also been generous in giving back to the community. Indeed, its donation of $88,000 to the California State University, Chico's Paul L. Byrne Agricultural Teaching and Research Center illustrates its desire to give back to the community that has aided in its success. There is no doubt that the Second Congressional District of California is a better place because of the economic activity and good works that Sierra Nevada Brewery selflessly provides.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to affirm Israel's right to self- defense and to express my outrage over the knee-jerk international condemnation of our strong ally following the recent flotilla incident.

The video is clear: The activists ignored warnings from Israeli forces to turn away from Gaza, and they disregarded invitations to offload their supplies elsewhere. Worst of all, they placed Israeli forces in grave danger by brutally attacking them.

Many countries immediately condemned Israel. Their reactions sharply contrast with their failures to denounce the hostile behavior of Iran and North Korea.

I applaud the Obama administration for avoiding this double standard. The United States must always stand against the unfair treatment of an important ally.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this ``deficit extenders'' bill. There is no dispute that items such as unemployment insurance, Medicare physician payment, and R&D tax credits need to be addressed. However, the legislation before us exemplifies an odd view of fiscal responsibility. We don't have to pay for new spending, but every time we temporarily extend existing tax cuts, we have to permanently increase other taxes.

Despite the majority's pay-as-you-go rhetoric, this bill adds $54 billion to our out-of-control budget deficit. It also imposes a number of new taxes

that have not been examined by the tax writing Ways and Means Committee. These include an $11 billion payroll tax hike on small businesses, as well as the carried interest tax increase that threatens to devastate the commercial real estate and venture capital industries, both of which are vital to my State of California.

The majority would like to characterize this as a ``jobs bill.'' Yet the truth is that virtually all of the policies in this bill were already in place throughout 2009, the same year our economy lost 3 million jobs.

This is not a jobs bill. It's just another extension of the ``tax- too-much, spend-too-much, borrow-too-much'' philosophy that we have come to expect from this Democratic majority.

I urge the defeat of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this resolution. However, I find it interesting that we are discussing the hardships faced by those with allergies and asthma, when just over 2 months ago the Democrats rammed through a health care law that will prohibit Americans from using pretax dollars to buy over-the-counter allergy medicines and impose harsh new taxes on prescription drugs used in asthma inhalers.

Beginning next year, the Democrats' health care overhaul will prohibit the 45 million Americans with flexible spending arrangements and health savings accounts from using this money to purchase over-the- counter drugs like Claritin or Zyrtec. This amounts to a $5 billion tax increase. Those with asthma will soon see their out-of-pocket costs increase because the Democrats' health overhaul imposes a $27 billion tax on drug manufacturers, including those who make inhalation drugs. Mr. Speaker, that's nothing to sneeze about. The Medicare actuaries expect this, quote, ``tax would generally be passed through to health consumers in the form of higher drug prices.''

Mr. Speaker, it's time to repeal the Democrats' health law and replace it with commonsense reforms that actually lower health care costs, not raise them.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor a hometown hero . . . SPC David Mayer from Placentia, California. As you know, our men and women of honor who wear the uniform . . . must come back home and start all over again. As each has their own personal mountains to climb. In our daily lives, we take for granted the little things, like having two legs and being able to walk. And the littlest things can sometimes become the greatest of all mountains to climb. Like a soldier who comes back home from war, and must start all over again. And take . . . those first steps. This poem is dedicated to such an American Hero from California, who was ready to give his life for all of us. As he did give his two strong legs in the name of freedom, and now his new battle has begun. . . . This poem is dedicated to SPC David Mayer, and the thousands just like him, who by their actions teach us everyday. Teach us all about faith and courage. As David has lost both of his legs in an IED explosion in Iraq. I ask that the following poem penned in honor of him by Capitol Guide Albert Caswell be put in the Record. And remember this Memorial Day our troops sacrifice, and the loving parents like that have helped David.

My . . .

My First . . .

My First Steps . . .

Are but, my first ones. . . .

My First Steps, that I've begun. . . .

My new footprints, that I have won . . .

All in this new battle, all in what must be done!

All in what is said, and so too what must be won . . .

All in these, my new baby steps, please . . . all in

courage's sun . . .

Are but, really giant steps . . . as so are each . . . yes,

each and everyone. . . .

With all of that pain, and will . . . as my heart to me so

instills . . . TO RUN. . . .

To fight! One by one . . . Day by Day . . . Night by Night .

. . I will say, I'm not done. . . .

All along heartbreak's way . . . I will walk and I will run .

. . and I will see The Rising Sun . . .

As I will rise . . . and wipe away all of those tears from my

eyes . . . look at me, I've just begun. . . .

For it was but not a long ago, when as a child . . . a memory

I will not know . . . when I took . . .

I took, those very first steps. . . .

And now, in the coming years . . . as the time so passes here

. . .

I will look back, and I will remember. . . .

Carried in my heart, all in to warm my soul. . . .

Forever, the memory . . . these embers . . .

Of My First Steps!

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself so much time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, millions of American workers are in danger of losing their health care coverage because of the Democrats' unprecedented social experiment. One of the central flaws of the Democrats' health care overhaul is that it forces every American to buy health insurance and allows Federal bureaucrats to decide if their coverage is acceptable. If your insurance does not meet the government's standards, then you will be taxed. That's why we're considering this bill today.

Certainly, none of us wants to see hundreds of disabled children of veterans lose their health insurance because of the Democrats' grand experiment on health care. I agree with the goal of this legislation and intend to support it.

However, where is the fix for the millions of American workers and retirees who will be forced out of the health care coverage they currently have?

Fortune.com reported internal company documents from four major U.S. employers reveal they are considering ``dumping the health care coverage they provide to their workers in exchange for paying penalty fees to the government.''

These companies currently offer health benefits to well over 2.3 million employees, retirees, and their dependents, a number that exceeds the population of 15 States as well as the District of Columbia.

AT&T reports they could save $4.1 billion per year if they simply dump their employee health care coverage and pay the employer mandate tax instead. When will the Democrats put a bill on the floor that protects 1.2 million AT&T employees, retirees, and their dependents from losing their coverage?

Caterpillar would reduce its expenses by 70 percent if they eliminate health benefits and, instead, pay the tax. Where's the protection for these employees?

A survey conducted by the City University of New York for the Financial Executives Research Foundation found that three-quarters of chief financial officers believe the Democrat health overhaul will be ``negative both for Americans and for their own companies.''

Sixty-two percent of CFOs say they will have to increase employee copays by 48 percent. Forty-eight percent believe they will have to reduce the quality of the health care package they offer employees. And 46 percent say they will have to reduce employee benefits.

Even more troubling, The Philadelphia Inquirer recently interviewed legal experts who advise employers on how to structure their health plans. According to their report, some health care benefit managers ``see a future in which employers no longer provide coverage because the cost of dropping health insurance for employees, about $2,000 per person in Federal penalties to employers, is far less than the current cost of providing family coverage, about $12,000 per employee. There is an opportunity to get out of providing health benefits to employees.''

While I support the goal of the legislation before us, it is not enough. We must repeal this dangerous experiment with government control of health care and replace it with reforms that will allow all Americans to keep their health coverage.

Mr. Speaker, I yield so much time as he may consume to the ranking member of the Veterans Affairs Committee, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer).