[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 152 (Tuesday, October 9, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H11376-H11383]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE REPUBLICAN VISION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing us to be on the 
floor this evening to talk about very important issues.
  And of course the House of Representatives, in recess right now, is 
beginning to prepare for the funeral for our colleague, Jo Ann Davis of 
Virginia, who passed away. Today, our colleagues came to the floor one 
by one to not only acknowledge the service that Jo Ann Davis gave to 
the United States of America, but also in her representation of her 
congressional district Jo Ann will be missed. Jo Ann courageously 
fought cancer. Jo Ann courageously went back home day after day, week 
after week, after serving the United States Congress, making sure that 
she talked about those things which she did in her job and her 
representation of people from Virginia, but perhaps more importantly, 
with the strength and character and courage that Jo Ann, even in the 
midst of adversity, brought to this body was an inspiration to 
Republicans and Democrats alike. It is with a heavy heart that we all 
will miss her, and we say to her family, how much they know they will 
miss her, too, and to her constituents, they were well served. Mr. 
Speaker, we will miss Jo Ann Davis from Virginia.
  Mr. Speaker, tonight I come to the floor of the House of 
Representatives to talk about the things which I believe are important 
for so many people to understand, not just about what is happening here 
in Washington, DC between the two parties, the Republican Party and the 
Democrat Party, as we talk about public policy issues that are 
demanding on both parties, and certainly our President and the American 
people who want to, and do, recognize that America's greatest days lie 
in our future, but rather, not just understanding the philosophies 
which are talked about here, but they want to know more about them. 
What would those policies lead to? And tonight it is my intent, with 
several of my Republican colleagues, to talk about the Republican 
vision, the Republican vision that would be of a smaller, smarter,

[[Page H11377]]

commonsense government versus the Democrat agenda, which is 
ineffective, wasteful and intrusive government.
  The Republican Party for so many years has been really the party of 
the free enterprise system, the free enterprise system which has made 
America the envy of the world, which has made the Republican Party and 
this great Nation to not only grow in stature, but to provide dreams, 
dreams to Americans and dreams for people around the world.
  Mr. Speaker, just in March of this year, the Financial Times out of 
London put forth a pretty interesting editorial where they talked about 
that the EU, now 25 combined nations of the EU has a GDP that equals 
that of the United States of America, or at least where the United 
States of America was 25 years ago; meaning that Europe consolidated 
all of their resources to the EU, the European Union, to these 25 
nations, and when they combine all that they have equal that of the 
United States GDP 25 years ago.
  What is interesting is that they also look at the amount of spending 
that would take place within their medical system and within research 
and development in medicine, and both those lag 25 years behind the 
United States.
  The United States of America has a strong and vibrant system, the 
free enterprise system, as a result of not just the United States 
Congress and tax cuts and making sure that we have the greatest health 
care system in the world, but it comes as a result of what you're going 
to hear tonight of a public policy that is ennunciated from a 
Republican vision. And certainly, as we look at what has made America 
great, you would want to look at, well, why has Europe lagged so far 
behind? I mean, after all, Europe could do the exact same things that 
America does. They have education. They have wonderful people. They 
have innovate ideas and opportunities. I would submit to you it is 
because of the public policy. And the public policy that they have in 
Europe really has three basic tenets that are entirely different than 
the United States has, our free enterprise system. And that was pretty 
much ennunciated by what you saw tonight; we're talking about health 
care, where it's a State-run program. This is what the Democratic Party 
is pushing for their public policy. They want a State-run, single-payer 
health care system, just like Europe.
  We also see rules and regulations. Europe is completely covered up 
with rules and regulations that tell not only employers but also 
employees exactly how they will be treated. Forget the free enterprise 
system, forget innovativeness, forget the new opportunities that people 
might have to bring new products and services. You've got to look up 
the union rule book; you've got to find out what you can do.
  And lastly, the third tenet that separates the United States of 
America from the European model is taxation. Taxes began as a battle 
point under Ronald Reagan here in this country. And we recognized that 
back under Ronald Reagan, and the President recognized it, that our 
taxes were not just too high, they were stifling innovativeness and the 
free enterprise system. They were stifling the ability that we had to 
grow our free enterprise system in favor of giving the money to the 
government, to grow the size of government. And as our President, 
Ronald Reagan, said, he hoped that he would change that to where 
America once again would be the shining city on the hill. In fact, that 
did take place. As we cut taxes, as we became prepared for the future 
way back when Ronald Reagan was President to be prepared today, and for 
the last few years, for America to propel itself forward.
  Mr. Speaker, the Financial Times was right when they said in March 
that the European Union could not compete against the United States 
economically because of the three tenets that make the EU different, 
and that is, high taxes, more rules and regulations, and single-payer 
system for health care.
  Tonight, you are going to hear members of the Republican Party talk 
about how that is virtually exactly what the Democrat Party agenda is 
for this great Nation. And tonight you're going to hear Republicans 
talk about smaller, smarter, commonsense government whereby we not only 
balance budgets, where we have tax reform, where we have health care 
that works on behalf of people to where we can maintain the greatest 
health care system in the world. We will talk about agriculture; the 
gentleman from the great State of Oregon (Mr. Walden) is here to do 
that. We will talk about intelligence and homeland security. And 
lastly, we intend to talk about education.
  It is with great honor tonight that I am joined by a dear colleague 
who is from the State of Oregon, the gentleman from Oregon, and I would 
yield to him at this time.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. Representative Sessions, I appreciate your 
comments tonight about the differences between our parties, Republicans 
versus Democrats; but moreover, the vision for this country. Because I 
think at the end of the day Americans want us to come together with a 
vision that will produce jobs, that will let Americans keep more of 
what they earn, that will do something to protect our various resources 
and allow us to be competitive internationally.
  I heard your comments about our competitiveness versus the European 
Union, and I am no economist, but I did spend a little time over there 
this spring. And, you know, they're headed down this path of higher 
taxes in some countries, and other countries have figured out they 
can't compete with higher taxes and they can't compete with very short 
work weeks, and they're actually trying to reform to be more like the 
United States.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. I would be happy to yield.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the gentleman.
  You know, an example of this might be the recent election that we saw 
in France. And I'm going to let you amplify that, but as we in America 
looked at France, and just in the past few years as we looked at a 
closed system that they have to where they're not only having to have 
people to come through immigration to their country, they are not able 
to grow their economy, to be able to bring them into their economy so 
that they can be real positives. It's a closed system.

                              {time}  2030

  What we have seen is how the French people changed their government 
as a result of that. America still is the big dream. I think the French 
understand that.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. I appreciate that. America is a great country 
with a great future if we don't allow it to get messed up in these 
Halls. We have a great opportunity ahead of us, I believe. I certainly 
think when you see what is happening in some European capitals, some 
are good things and then there are some questionable things. In some of 
these areas they realized their tax rates are much too high. All you 
have to do is go back and look at Ireland that went ahead after many 
decades of stagnant economy and then did a major tax reform or 
reduction and all of a sudden its economy is blossoming. They are 
creating jobs. They are attracting companies to locate in Ireland.
  I guess that is what troubles me a bit about what I see happening 
here in the new Democrat majority is they are looking at how do we 
raise taxes, which I don't think is the way to go. I think hardworking 
Americans deserve to keep more of what they earn. Certainly that has 
been my philosophy and how I have voted here. I think that the outcome 
is clear. If you look at when President Kennedy cut the capital gains 
tax rate, revenues went up to the Federal Government. Bill Clinton 
understood it. He cut capital gains rate. Revenues went up to the 
Federal Government. Republicans cut the capital gains rate. Revenues 
went up to the Federal Government. The new majority, the Democrats say, 
We may just let that expire. We may raise it. We may raise all these 
taxes. I think the effect will be very harsh on our economy and 
revenues to the Federal Government will probably go down.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Exactly what the gentleman is talking about, the newest 
word out today in the Wall Street Journal, last week the Bureau of 
Labor Statistics released new figures, 110,000 jobs created in 
September of this year.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. 110,000 new jobs.
  Mr. SESSIONS. September 2007 is the 49th consecutive month of job 
growth,

[[Page H11378]]

setting a new record for the longest uninterrupted expansion of the 
U.S. labor market. There is more good news. No surprise. We also 
learned that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the 
Federal deficit came in at $161 billion for the just-completed 2007 
year, down significantly from $248 billion the year before, meaning 
that we are following exactly what the gentleman from Oregon is talking 
about. We are following through to make sure that with these tax cuts 
that not only do people have jobs, but the government increases the 
amount of revenue it has.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. I am glad you made the point about the 
declining deficits and the increasing revenues to the Federal 
Government. This Federal Government has never been richer. It has never 
had more of our tax dollars than it has today. The issue here is how do 
you control spending. I think that Wall Street Journal editorial and 
column went on to say today that, Look out, because there are all these 
new spending programs being put on the desk.
  I met with a group this weekend in my district and I said, You know, 
if you smoke, if you drink, if you are born, if you die, if you have 
capital gains, dividend income, if you just work, look out because the 
taxes on you are most likely going to go up. That is what we see here, 
as you know, on the farm bill that recently was approved by this House. 
I reluctantly at the end voted against it because it abrogates 55 
international tax treaties we have on how our companies and other 
international companies are dealt with. Those are treaties we have. And 
this House, no notice to anyone here, I think we learned the night 
before the vote, suddenly wanted to raise taxes $78 billion and 
abrogate all these international treaties America has entered into. Not 
renegotiate them. Just blow them apart.
  And I don't think that is the way to go. We hear more about this 
every day. It is pick on this group or that group or the next group, 
set one American against another American and try to leverage one group 
and wedge one group and engage in all this political posturing to grow 
government.
  Mr. SESSIONS. The point that the gentleman from Oregon is making is 
so true, and it seems like that we are always in gear for an election. 
The fact of the matter is that every 2 years there is an election, but 
now, the year before the election, we have engaged in so much bashing 
of not only America but really how great America is.
  What the gentleman talks about here would also be true with trade, 
about how America has found a way to find trading partners all around 
the globe to reduce tariffs. And if there is one thing, and the 
gentleman knows that I am a big scouter with the Boy Scouts of America. 
I teach merit badge classes back home. All of my scouters learn right 
off the bat, what is a tariff? And they respond, it is a tax. We are 
reducing taxes and allowing countries all around the globe to be able 
to compete so that they better their own economic circumstances and end 
poverty in their own country. This is part of what that overall plan 
is.

  Agriculture plays a key role in this.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. A huge role.
  Mr. SESSIONS. The American is a farmer making sure that not only what 
we produce in this country that we get that opportunity for it, but 
making sure the rest of the world has that same opportunity. So this is 
where these trade bills which are languishing right now in the House of 
Representatives, the clock has already started. Please let everyone 
know back home if you can, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), that 
we need to continue these trade bills to make sure that American 
agriculture and our manufacturing pushes our products overseas and we 
take their products which helps not only these countries but also all 
of humanity.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. As the gentleman well knows, the trade bills 
that are pending open their markets to our goods, because our markets 
are all already open to their goods. This is about American 
manufacturers, American agriculture being able to sell what we make or 
raise here into other markets in a fair way.
  I met with a wheat marketing group on Friday morning in my district 
in the town of Moro, Sherman County. And wheat there, they had just 
sold a barge full of U.S. soft white wheat from the Northwest for $11 a 
bushel. I stutter because it is a record amount, $11 a bushel. Why? 
Well, there are droughts in Australia and elsewhere, enormous demand 
for this product on the world market. Where they have suffered year 
after year when there have been gluts on the market, in this year, 
world economy, effects of agriculture around the globe, international 
trade policy being open, they are going to get up to $11 for their 
wheat. Now the market has come down a little bit, $300 for barley right 
now. These are tremendous prices that will help American farmers 
because it needs to be sold to countries overseas that are consuming it 
in enormous amounts.
  So we benefit from trade if these agreements are fair, if they are 
negotiated properly, and if they are enforced correctly. Now, let me 
give you an example in my part of the world that is really troubling 
and that this Congress needs to do something about, and that is the 
issue of illegal logging. It ties into the whole issue of the 
environment and how I think Republicans want to take care of the 
environment that we have especially in our forests. There is an 
enormous amount of illegal logging going on overseas to satisfy the 
wood demand that we have right here in the United States and elsewhere. 
But we are the big importers in many cases.
  According to the G-8 illegal logging dialogue which happened in 
Berlin in June of this year, 40 percent of illegally cut timber is 
attributable to imports to the G-8 countries, and United States is 
responsible for a quarter of those imports. Now, what is going on 
around the world I don't think most Americans are aware of. I wasn't. 
The Washington Post did a terrific story on it. I have now read other 
studies. Brazil, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia appeared to supply, 
but not necessarily from all their own forests, a great majority of 
this illegal timber. There may be logs on the books that say, Don't cut 
here. But that doesn't stop rogue provinces and illegal operators from 
doing that. Why does that matter? Because here in the United States, 
this Congress and this government has clamped down on our domestic 
production of timber off our forested lands, especially in the West, 80 
percent reduction since 1990. Meanwhile, wild fires ravage America's 
forests.
  I tell you, Congressman Sessions, if Theodore Roosevelt were alive 
today, he created these forest reserves in 1905, he would be rolling 
over in his grave to watch how mismanaged they are. We had over 8 
million acres go up in fire this year, nearly a record. We are on track 
for a record each of these last few years. It costs the taxpayers of 
America $1.2 billion so far and we are not done with the fire season, 
so far to extinguish these blazes.

  Mr. SESSIONS. Tonight we are talking about the Republican vision 
versus the Democrat agenda. Smaller, smarter, commonsense government 
versus ineffective, wasteful, intrusive government. Forestry may be one 
of those issues that would fit right in here.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. It absolutely is one of those issues. When 
Republicans were in control of this assembly, and I am sorry to sound 
partisan on this, but it is just the way it is in the clash of 
philosophies on this particular issue, while we had some bipartisan 
help, I chaired the Forestry Subcommittee in the House Resources 
Committee. We held hearing after hearing after hearing on these issues. 
We marked up and passed legislation, some of which made it all the way 
into law, some of which was bipartisan and passed this assembly.
  But unfortunately, today, the Speaker of the House, the majority 
leader of the House, the Democratic caucus chair, the Natural Resources 
Committee chair and the Rules Committee chairwoman all voted against, 
for example, the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, which did become law, 
which allowed some thinning of our forest, not as much as I would like 
to see but helped streamline it. The whole leadership of this Democrat 
Congress voted against that in the House. So it makes it almost 
impossible to go to the next step to help stop these wild fires from 
ravaging our forests, to get to commonsense management of our timber.
  I want to show an example here of a fire that occurred in my 
district. This

[[Page H11379]]

is the example of the Eggley fire. The Eggley fire burned about 140,000 
acres of America's grasslands and forest lands out in Harney County, 
140,000 acres. Do you see the devastation? These two children are the 
grandchildren of the county judge there, a Democrat, Steve Grasty, and 
they are standing there as a stark example of the future that they are 
now inheriting. Some of this area burned before. Some of this area has 
been basically made off limits. We think you ought to go in there and 
remove the burned dead trees while they still have value and restart a 
new forest sooner. We had legislation that passed the Republican House 
last year, it was bipartisan, that would have gotten that going. 
Unfortunately, the Senate never picked it up.
  Mr. SESSIONS. So the opportunity to go in and clear, the opportunity 
to allow this burned timber to be harvested would mean that bugs and 
all the things which might find a way to eat this timber or weaken it, 
rather than clearing it and getting started again, is in the process of 
decay, not health at this time.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. I will tell you what is worse. We have a lot of 
cattle ranchers out there who have permits to graze on some of this 
ground. Because of the intensity of this fire, it may be one year or 
two before the grasses come back and they will be allowed to graze. 
They are having now today, literally today, with the price of hay being 
what it is and the demand, they are having to liquidate their herds. 
Some of them may go completely out of business all because these lands 
aren't being properly managed.
  Now, for our friends who are concerned about global warming and 
greenhouse gas emissions, I serve on the Select Committee on Energy 
Independence and Climate Change. A fire that burns as intensely or more 
so than this one probably emits 100 tons of greenhouse gas emission for 
every acre, 100 tons per acre. This burned 140,000 acres. A good, 
green, healthy-growing forest like a lot of them we have in the 
Northwest will sequester between 4 and 6 tons of carbon per acre. So 
wouldn't you think that this Congress would be focusing on doing better 
management on our forests? And yet the subcommittee that I used to 
chair has now been compressed in with the National Parks, Forests and 
Public Lands Subcommittee into one, has held one hearing in 9\1/2\ 
months on this issue. They have marked up no legislation dealing with 
this issue. Nothing is happening of consequence, except taxpayers are 
spending $1.2 billion to fight these blazes. The future these kids are 
looking at is a long way off. I like my forests green and healthy, not 
black. But some of the groups out there who appeal even thinning in 
these areas issued a statement recently that said burned forests are 
healthy forests.
  Now, I suppose in the enormous scope of time, they grow back. We know 
that. But I don't think burned forests are the policy that Americans 
want us to have when it comes to their forests. It doesn't work well 
for habitat, for water quality and watersheds.
  Meanwhile, I'll bet we don't cut a stick of this, or very little of 
it. Instead, because this will get litigated because we won't change 
the law here which is what needs to happen, even though you and I would 
do it and you have been helpful in these efforts, instead we will 
proudly go to the local store and get our furniture made in China from 
illegally harvested wood from countries that have no environmental laws 
where the forests are extraordinarily important around the equator to 
sequester carbon.

                              {time}  2045

  I don't understand the ineffective, wasteful vision of the other 
side, when I believe no land manager in America would allow this to 
occur and wouldn't go in right afterward. Counties don't do it. Private 
foresters don't allow this to occur. They get in right away. I have 
been out on sites, and they get in right away, clean it up. Our State 
of Oregon has a very progressive Forest Practices Act. But they don't 
wait. They don't wait a year. It will be a year before they are done 
writing their plan, and then it will be subject to appeal and 
litigation, most likely for another year.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I remember when the fires at Yellowstone 
were taking place, and I remember seeing how many of our friends who 
were environmentalists said, let it burn, let it burn, and yet I 
remember seeing the carnage that took place with wildlife and the 
millions of animals who not only lost their home but then would be 
thrust out in the cold as a result of the huge fire, when in fact I had 
learned from my being an Eagle Scout, and the gentleman from Oregon is 
an Eagle Scout, we learned in our forestry merit badges that healthy 
forests are those where you can come in and clear out those things that 
were from years of use, and come and clean the forest, and you could 
come and take sections so that you made sure that any fire did not 
destroy the whole thing. They would come and cut the forest and work 
with Mother Nature and then replant.
  Mr. Speaker, in the last 5 or 6 years, and you can look at any 
National Geographic or perhaps the Discovery Channel and see where the 
people, the companies that grow trees, they have healthy forests. I 
think the healthiest forests are where private people and private 
companies own the trees, as opposed to the government, because the 
government has a policy of ineffective, wasteful and intrusive 
government in managing our forests.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. The other thing we learned as Scouts, and, like 
you say, we are both Eagle Scouts, what has always stuck with me when 
it comes to how we manage our resources was a very simple line: ``Leave 
your campsite better than you found it.'' That, I think, is a great 
guiding principle for those of us in this body, not only for natural 
resource policy, but for this country, to leave it better than you 
found it.
  Mr. Speaker, let me just suggest that we burned more than 8 million 
acres this year, and 5.7 million acres, which is our new average that 
we are burning every year in this country, is an area larger than the 
entire State of New Jersey. We throw these big numbers around in 
Washington, the bureaucrats do it all the time, and we do it from time 
to time. Think about every year you're burning an area of your national 
forest and grasslands and other areas larger than the size of the State 
of New Jersey.
  Let me tell you what just happened in my district of eastern Oregon. 
I have 70,000 square miles of terrific eastern Oregon. Three of the 
last mills have been put either on indefinite closure or closure in 
very remote areas where they are surrounded by overstocked forests that 
need all this work, and they are some of the last, if not the last 
mills in these communities, and 198 people in those three communities 
have lost their jobs. That is 2.6 percent of nonfarm payroll.
  Now the State's economists, the certified smart economic folks, said, 
I wonder what that impact of those 198 jobs would be if it was spread 
over 2.6 percent of nonfarm payroll over the Portland metropolitan 
area. So a standard city in America, what do you think that would be? 
It would be the loss of 26,400 jobs.
  So all across the rural West in small communities where the mills 
close, there's barely a yawn or a whimper in this Congress about what 
is happening, and yet the prior forest service chiefs and the current 
one will tell you our country and our forests and our ability to manage 
those forests cannot be sustained if we lose the infrastructure to do 
the management.
  That is precisely what is happening today, for a lot of reasons, some 
of it market conditions, but part of the market conditions is an 80 
percent reduction in the timber harvest on Federal land, an inability 
to go in and even clean up after a fire in less than 2 years on Federal 
land.
  I was just out on the GW fire, not named for me, even though it's my 
initials, GW fire outside of Black Butte Ranch, Sisters, Oregon. It 
burned, I think, 7,000 acres, something like that, or 8,000. Where the 
forest service had done thinning, the fire dropped to the ground and 
they put it out. That is part of what we were trying to accomplish with 
our Healthy Forest Restoration Act that President Bush signed into law, 
that we as Republicans wrote, with bipartisan help.
  The thinning project, where it dropped to the ground, the trees are 
all green around it, was held up by environmentalists for let's say 5 
years in

[[Page H11380]]

litigation, 2001 until, I think, 2006, and finally the forest service 
prevailed and they worked the sale. They thinned out this overstock 
stand, and a fire hit it and it went out, and the trees are still 
green.
  Mr. Speaker, I think that what Americans want is for us to manage, to 
be good stewards of this land and this resource. To do what is 
happening today without reform is ineffective, it's wasteful, it's 
intrusive. Today, 45 percent of the forest service budget goes to 
fighting fire. It used to be 15. That is 45 percent goes to fighting 
fire. A nearly like amount goes to paperwork to process the various 
activities they do, rather than on the ground, doing what they are 
trained to do. We tie them up in court, in litigation, in all this 
process and all this stuff.
  We have got to fix this problem, and if we do, when we passed the 
Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act in the House last year by a 
big bipartisan margin, it would have generated, I think, $140 million 
over 10 years to the Federal Treasury in net new revenues. It would 
have helped pay for cleanup and restoration effort.
  We can do these things, but this leadership today, they voted against 
it, from the Speaker on down. They put people in charge of the 
committees who were opposed to us every step of the way.
  So I would tell my colleague from Texas, elections have consequences, 
and the changes are being played out today as more and more 
firefighters are called upon to put out these blazes, as cattle 
ranchers in eastern Oregon and around the West are driven off their 
allotments, having to liquidate their herds or trying to get disaster 
help in, when it doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't have to be 
that way.

  We can work smarter, we can fix these problems, and in so doing, we 
can improve the environment. Do you think this is great habitat for 
anything other than bugs and woodpeckers, which need habitat; I'm not 
downplaying that. We have seen case after case. In Colorado, the Hayman 
fire. After that enormous fire, the Denver watershed was deluged with 
mud and dead animal debris and dead fish as the runoff occurred. We are 
always going to have fire. We need to be smart on how we manage our 
forests so we can manage our fires. Get it back in balance with nature.
  Mr. Speaker, this Congress has held one hearing, taken no legislative 
action, zero, zip, zilch, let it burn, don't fix it afterwards, and we 
will just get our imported wood from illegal logging and furniture from 
China. It doesn't make sense. It needs to change.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the gentleman from Oregon, who not only has 
persuasively brought forth arguments that he sees in his home State of 
Oregon, but also who amplified the Republican vision, smaller, smarter, 
commonsense government, almost something you can find in a Scout 
handbook, or a merit badge, versus the Democrat agenda, which is 
ineffective, wasteful, intrusive government, allowing not only for 
thousands of people to lose their job, but mismanagement of the natural 
resources that has been given to this great country that Lewis & Clark 
found out so much about, that we tout as not only the Teddy Roosevelt 
answer to the way America would be, but also how we are going to bring 
her on in the future.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Oregon not only for 
his time, for his dedication, but also for the things which he believes 
in.
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. Mr. Speaker, I want to make one other comment. 
You're going to see a lot of discussion in this Congress about what to 
do about global warming. I serve on both the Energy and Commerce 
Committee and the Energy and Air Quality Committee and the Select 
Committee on Global Climate Change, and I want to do what is right for 
the environment. But there are going to be competing viewpoints. The 
two philosophies are going to collide here.
  There are some on the Democrat leadership side who think a carbon tax 
is where America should go, a .50 cent a gallon increase in taxes on 
your gasoline. That is their vision. It's $50 a ton carbon emissions 
from power plants, higher taxes, higher fees on ratepayers in America 
or drivers in America. I don't think it has to be that way, by the way. 
I think there are ways we can invest in research and development and 
get new technologies and incent Americans to do the right thing, not 
punish them with higher taxes, because Europe is kind of going that 
direction. They are looking at a cap and trade model in Germany. They 
rolled it out 5 years and the price of electricity in Germany went up 
25 percent. They miscalculated. Guess who got the bill? The ratepayers 
did. Now they are going to try and change that. They think they have 
got a little different thing worked out.
  But I would rather invest in research, development in new 
technologies for new fuels. I was out at the dedication of an ethanol 
plant in my district. If we can ever get to cellulosic, we can use 
woody biomass and we can use things like algae to scrub carbon out and 
to produce fuel. It is amazing what lurks out there on the horizon. But 
we don't have to punish ratepayers, I don't think, at least. And yet, 
you watch, that is what is coming.
  Think back to Jimmy Carter in the seventies. He put on his sweater, 
sat by the fireplace in the White House. The sweater thing may be 
there, but you aren't going to get to have a fire. You're just going to 
shiver in the cold because you won't be able to afford your electricity 
or your power because they are going to drive up the costs so high that 
people are going to say ``I can't afford it.'' And then they will race 
back here to get more money from the government to help bring down the 
cost of heating.
  Mr. Speaker, it doesn't have to be that way. We ought to have 
incentives, not punishment. There are ways to get this done. There is a 
great story in the Wall Street Journal today about big national 
companies that are beginning to ask about carbon footprint of their 
suppliers, and Americans are beginning to say maybe you ought to put a 
fluorescent light bulb in. If you put it in five of your most used 
lights, you can save an enormous amount of energy. It's a good thing 
for your bottom line, and it reduces carbon. Keep your air up in your 
tires, you reduce carbon emissions and you increase your gas mileage.
  These are things Americans will do because we want a good, healthy 
environment. But do you want to have a 20 percent increase in your 
electricity bill this winter? Do you want 50 cents more on top of a 
gallon of gas? And who gets the money? The Federal Government. You 
could have a trillion dollars that way in a heartbeat and it will all 
be hidden; it will be phased in, come out of your power bills, you will 
never know it happened. And the big spenders around here are just 
licking their chops.
  I don't think it has to be that way. I think we can have smaller, 
smarter commonsense government that uses market principles and incent 
the people to do the right thing, not ineffective, wasteful and 
intrusive government that just costs taxpayers more and more and more.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I want to thank the gentleman from Oregon. There's only 
one thing you didn't mention, and that's the BTU tax that many of the 
new leaders of the United States Congress today, the new Democrat 
majority, right there with the BTU tax. They're back. What they are 
really saying is pretty simple: Don't use this electricity; sit in the 
dark. Don't go create something that is good or better, don't find a 
way to have less emissions; go and tax things.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for being here today. We 
have been joined also tonight by the gentleman, who is a dear friend of 
mine from Iowa, Mr. King. We are talking tonight, Mr. King, about the 
Republican agenda, smaller, smarter, commonsense government, versus the 
Democrat agenda, which is ineffective, wasteful and intrusive 
government. And perhaps the thing which I identify most, and 
particularly when I see you, is to talk about taxes and how important 
tax reform has been.
  Mr. Speaker, it has been said a long time ago that the Republican 
party is here as the bull dogs for the taxpayer, to make sure that 
efficiency occurs, to make sure that the original mission statement of 
what a program might be for, to balance a budget is important. I don't 
know if the gentleman heard or not, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics 
released new job figures of 110,000 net

[[Page H11381]]

new jobs in September. September 2007 is the 49th consecutive month of 
job growth, setting a new record for the longest uninterrupted 
expansion of the U.S. labor market.

                              {time}  2100

  Since August of 2003, our economy has created more than 8.1 million 
jobs and today has the lowest unemployment that sits at 4.7 percent. 
There is more good news. You see, if you have a country that produces 
great dreams for people and they can go make things happen, like jobs, 
we also learned last week that the nonpartisan CBO, Congressional 
Budget Office, said the Federal deficit came in at $161 billion for the 
just-completed fiscal year, down from $248 billion the year before. I 
think we are headed in the right direction. I yield to the gentleman 
from Iowa.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for 
organizing this Special Order this evening and pulling together a lot 
of the thought process regarding the Republican vision versus the 
Democrat agenda.
  Looking at the 40 consecutive months of job growth, I would take us 
back to why we didn't have job growth before this began in August 2003. 
I would like to frame this for when the Bush Presidency came in in 
January 2001. That was in the middle of the bursting of the dot-com 
bubble. We had an economy that was really a false economy. It was a 
speculation on the ability to store and transfer information more 
efficiently than ever before, but it had not been corrected for.
  Well, the dot-com bubble was in the middle of bursting in January 
2001. By September 11, 2001, the financial center was attacked, America 
was attacked and the Pentagon was attacked and they had the plane that 
crashed in Pennsylvania. This was another attack on our finances. This 
was a double-whammy cloud that came over the very new Bush 
administration.
  So we came forward with two rounds of tax cuts. We asked for $545 
billion worth of tax cuts over that span of time. We got a pretty good 
chunk of that. In two rounds, those tax cuts have been what produced 
this thriving economy that shows a stock market that sets new highs, 
and also this job growth of 49 consecutive months of job growth.
  Mr. SESSIONS. As I recall, we spent at least one or two of those 
elections talking about how the stock market was down and how people 
had lost their savings and their pensions were in trouble, and how all 
of these terrible things were happening, cataclysmic events.
  Then along came a market-based idea which we had known and understood 
not just from watching President Kennedy who cut capital gains and 
President Reagan to talk about you cut taxes you get more money because 
of invasion, isn't it true what this brave Republican Congress did is 
they cut taxes because they wanted to spur the American economy for 
people to have jobs and be competitive with the world, and so families 
would have an opportunity to keep more of what they made rather than 
giving it to the government.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. What the gentleman says is exactly true. Believing 
in the free market system and allowing people to keep more of what they 
earn, allowing them to make those decisions, that was entirely the 
philosophy behind the tax cuts. It has proven to be true throughout all 
these years, and it continues to grow this economy in the face of some 
very poor messages coming out of this Congress. Thankfully, not much of 
what has been attempted on the other side has been accomplished.
  I think a strong market indicates that Wall Street doesn't believe 
that the Democrats are going to accomplish very many of the things they 
would like to do.
  To go back to the tax component, and I don't know how I overlooked 
the corporate corruption which was also a component, Enron, Global 
Crossing, some of those things, the accounting things that were going 
on. I recall some people made a lot of money out of Global Crossing. 
Some went to jail; some didn't. Some are supporting Presidential 
campaigns. We ought to take a look at those folks and how that worked.
  But I would like to take this back to a philosophy that I would ask 
the American people to think about, that is, Ronald Reagan once said: 
what you tax, you get less of. He also said what you subsidize you get 
more of. But what you tax, you get less of. And so the Federal 
Government, in its, I'll say lack of wisdom, places a tax on all 
productivity in America. And Uncle Sam has the first lien on all 
productivity in America. That is our Federal income tax, personal, 
corporate, capital gains, the tax on your pension, the alternative 
minimum tax, the whole list of all of the Federal taxes, Social 
Security tax is another one. That list of taxes is taxes on 
productivity. Interest income, dividend income, all are measures of our 
productivity. The Federal Government has the first lien on those taxes.
  What I want to do, what a lot of us in this Congress want to do is 
adopt a national sales tax, a national consumption tax, H.R. 25, the 
FAIR Tax. I will say this: everything good that anyone's tax proposal 
does in this Congress, it does all of them in one package. That is not 
just my opinion. That is the opinion of a lot of economists and some 
very highly placed, respectable people.
  But to put that in place, we have to take the tax off of production 
and put it on consumption. We will have far more production. The 
estimates of some of the top economists go from a growth in our economy 
of maybe 8 to 9 percent up to 33, 35 percent growth in our economy. But 
nobody thinks there will be less growth; we think there will be more 
growth.
  But changing the dynamic way we tax, no tax on production, earn all 
you want to earn, save all you want to save and produce all you want to 
produce, there is a reward for that because then you get to decide when 
you pay taxes, and that will be when you consume.
  Another thing that is an important component of this, and Alexander 
Tyler once said that when a democracy realizes, and I will argue we are 
a constitutional Republic, but he referenced a democracy, when people 
realize they can vote themselves benefits from the public treasury, on 
that day a democracy ceases to exist.
  We have a number, maybe 44 percent, of Americans don't pay any income 
tax. That number has been growing. It is 2 or 3 or 4 years old, so I am 
going to suppose that number is bigger and maybe it is over 50 percent. 
If half of the people realize they can push their Congressmen and go to 
the polls and elect people that will vote them benefits out of the 
public treasury, then soon we are in a situation where that half of the 
people don't want to work. They don't want to produce any more. So they 
sit back. They were in the safety net that was created by the nanny 
state, and now that safety net has been cranked up to the elevation of 
a hammock, and there they sit, not producing, just sitting not being 
productive individuals in this society.
  Mr. SESSIONS. And aren't we in that circumstance as we speak now with 
the SCHIP, which is children's health care, where this new Democrat 
majority has brought forth a bill that, among other things, more than 
half of the people who would be new to this SCHIP bill would be people 
who are already on insurance, who already have private insurance, and 
yet they are demanding, no, no, we have to add them to the government 
side.
  What we are looking at here is a $6 billion program that Republicans 
invented because we believe in helping children because we know if you 
take care of children, immunize them and do things when they are 
children, then when they are adults, they not only do better in school 
they grow up and are healthier.
  We are taking this from a $6 billion program a year to a $13 billion 
program. And to fund it, it would require, under the Democrat majority 
plan, 20 million new smokers to pay for the darn program. Is that what 
you are talking about where you all of a sudden shift from people who 
figure out you can get the government to pay for everything, a 
government-run health care program?
  Mr. KING of Iowa. That is exactly what I am talking about. People 
decide they want to be dependent on the taxpayers. They think it is 
cheaper for them to let somebody else pay for those services. This is a 
perfect example.

[[Page H11382]]

  I was in the Iowa senate when we shaped the SCHIP policy and 
supported it at 200 percent of poverty. There are waivers in there, and 
I can speak specifically to Iowa's numbers. They vary across the 
country depending on the waivers and what the States have decided to 
do.
  I think it was New Jersey that said no matter what the President 
says, they are going to grant SCHIP benefits to 450 percent of poverty. 
In Iowa right now it is 200 percent of poverty, and there are 20 
percent that are waivers. So a family of four making $51,625 a year 
qualifies. That is mom, dad and two kids. The kids qualify for 
federally funded health insurance programs making that kind of money.
  The bill passed off the House, this Pelosi-led Congress, was 400 
percent of poverty. That meant that same family of four in Iowa that 
qualifies at $51,625 would qualify at over $103,000. Well, in the 
Senate it got negotiated down to 300 percent of poverty. So in my State 
that is still over $77,000 for a family of four.
  So you have to decide. There will be 2.1 million kids that I will say 
will be bribed off their own private health insurance by Federal tax 
dollars. They will say: go on the Federal plan.
  They will never be able to do that one again because there will be 
such a high percentage of the kids that you can never reach into that 
universe. I don't know if there will be any kids on privately funded 
health insurance if this SCHIP bill passes. That percentage goes up 
well over 80 percent of the kids that will be on federally funded 
health insurance, and there will be companies that are providing health 
insurance for their employees and the family, and they will take a look 
at this and decide I am paying them less than $83,000, which is a 
commonly used number, so why don't we just offer health insurance to 
the employee and their spouse or significant other, as the case may be, 
and just say we don't provide it for children because the Federal 
Government does.
  This bill takes us to the tipping point where it slides over the 
other side. It is the cornerstone for socialized medicine. It closes 
the gap, just a technicality to pick up the remaining percentage of 
kids that would be on private insurance.
  By the way, here in this Chamber, September 22, 1993, President 
Clinton spoke to a joint session on health care. He laid out a lot of 
this plan which we know now was Hillary's plan, and she began her 
hearings and her secret meetings after that, Harry and Louise shut that 
down, along with Phil Gramm and a good number of other people who 
believe in freedom and private health care.
  But Clinton came back and said if we can't get this done in one shot, 
we are going to do this incrementally. And the next step for full, 
federally funded coverage for children in America is to go and lower 
Medicare from 65 down to 55. If we do that, the people in the middle, 
SCHIP is covering some kids up to age 25 today. So the people in the 
middle ages, 25 to 55, they are the ones paying for their own and they 
would be paying for everybody else's.
  Mr. SESSIONS. My guess is they would call that the doughnut hole 
then.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. That is the group of volatile people that will 
realize they are paying for everybody else's health care, and they are 
paying for their own. They will say, put me on it, too, I'm paying for 
it anyway, and then we will have a Canadian plan. That is what I see 
coming.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Where would the Canadians go if America has a single 
payer, Hillary-style health care plan? Where would the Canadians go 
when they need real medicine?
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I would think they would be worried about that 
right now. Their Prime Minister came to the United States for melanoma 
surgery. There are entire companies that have been spawned in Canada 
who are in the business of setting up the transportation and the access 
to U.S. health care for the people that are very sick or maybe die in 
line in Canada that can come down to the United States.
  One of the good insurance programs that you can get up there is being 
able to have your heart surgery taken care of by flying you from Ottawa 
or Montreal or Quebec down to Houston for heart surgery. That is the 
Canadian package. There is no place to go if we don't have an American 
plan.
  And by the way, the research and development, the innovation, the 
things that make us the best in the world in health care, disappear too 
because the profit incentive is taken out. Then we get mediocre along 
with the rest of the world. That ends up reducing our quality of life, 
and it costs American lives.

                              {time}  2115

  Mr. SESSIONS. The gentleman, as he makes the point about how 
important it is that we have a market-based, free enterprise system 
health care, is so true.
  If you look at America and leukemia versus Europe, America's survival 
rate is 50 percent; Europe's is 35 percent. Prostate cancer, America's 
survival rate is 81.2 percent; France, 61.7; England, 44.3 percent.
  My gosh, it just tells you that what America has is not only the 
greatest health care system in the world, and one that is of envy, but 
one that produces results. And of course it is more expensive, and of 
course it costs money, but if the free enterprise system would support 
this because we don't tax the ability that people have to buy their 
health care, which is what the Democrat party mandate is, that you've 
got to tax people that don't belong in a corporation, then what it 
means is that you've got a bunch of people that can't afford it.
  So that's another point that comes back to your tax element about 
health care. You should not have to pay after-tax money on health care. 
It should all be pre-tax, but the Democrats insist that, if you don't 
work for a corporation, you should not get this opportunity because 
it's not something that you negotiated with with a labor contract.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I do have a bill that I've introduced in this 
Congress, whose number has escaped me, that provides full deductibility 
for health insurance purchased by individuals, and that's been slow in 
the coming. It's been lagging. It's rooted back in wage and price 
controls of World War II. When they froze those wages and prices, then 
employers figured out that if they couldn't give a raise, they could 
give a benefit. So health insurance became the benefit that got added 
on because wage dollars couldn't go up.
  When that happened, we built a foundation of employer-based health 
insurance in this country, and now it becomes the politics of holding 
on to that employer base. That's why there's not the flexibility that 
we need to have there.
  But an entrepreneur, an individual that starts up a business, a ma 
and pa store, they have to pay some of the highest premiums because 
they don't get into a group plan, and they can deduct 100 percent of 
the health insurance for their employees but not for themselves.
  There's something really wrong with that. That needs to be fixed. I 
would take this thing on over to a lot more freedom, and whenever you 
give up tax dollars, some of them provide you security like through the 
military, through those services that can't be provided any other way. 
Transportation is one of them. But at some point, as you peel out the 
tax dollars and hand them over into that hand of Uncle Sam, they 
represent your freedom that you're granting over there to the Federal 
Government. The Federal Government then decides who's going to be able 
to exercise their freedom at your expense.
  I want to feed my share of this and hold up my end of this freedom, 
but I don't want those dollars to go to discourage people from holding 
up their end of this load. That's the difference between Republicans 
and Democrats.
  We're all sociologists here in this chamber. We're here trying to 
figure out how do people react towards certain stimuli or lack of 
stimuli, raising taxes, raising regulations, imposing criminal 
penalties and prison sentences. Everything in between, across the 
spectrum are all things that we should be analyzing and having some 
understanding of how people will react.
  But we understand the motive for earn, save and invest, and we are 
philanthropists. We give at church. We give to charities. All of us in 
this country do, more on our side than the other side statistically, 
but if you let people keep their own money, they'll also understand a 
good place to put it out of the goodness of their heart.

[[Page H11383]]

  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the gentleman not only for being here this 
evening but a chance to join the gentleman from Oregon and, of course, 
Texan here.
  Mr. Speaker, tonight we've had an opportunity to talk about the 
Republican vision and how important the Republican vision is for a 
smaller, smarter, common sense government, versus a Democrat agenda, 
ineffective, wasteful and intrusive government.
  I want to thank my colleagues for being here this evening. Mr. 
Speaker, we appreciate your time. We know that the people of the good 
State of Tennessee have sent you here to do the people's work, and 
that's what we're here to do, same also, for good public policy.

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