[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 109 (Monday, July 20, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H8373-H8376]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 RECOGNIZING BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS

  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in 
the concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 30) commending the Bureau of 
Labor Statistics on the occasion of its 125th anniversary.
  The Clerk read the title of the concurrent resolution.
  The text of the concurrent resolution is as follows:

                            S. Con. Res. 30

       Whereas the Act entitled ``An Act to establish a Bureau of 
     Labor'', approved on June 27, 1884 (23 Stat. 60), established 
     a bureau to ``collect information upon the subject of labor, 
     its relation to capital, the hours of labor, and the earnings 
     of laboring men and women, and the means of promoting their 
     material, social, intellectual, and moral prosperity'';
       Whereas the Bureau of Labor Statistics is the principal 
     factfinding agency for the Federal Government in the broad 
     field of labor economics and statistics, and in that role it 
     collects, processes, analyzes, and disseminates essential 
     statistical data to the public, Congress, other Federal 
     agencies, State and local governments, business, and labor;
       Whereas the Bureau of Labor Statistics has completed 125 
     years of service to government, business, labor, and the 
     public by producing indispensable data and special studies on 
     prices, employment and unemployment, productivity, wages and 
     other compensation, economic growth, industrial relations, 
     occupational safety and health, the use of time by the people 
     of the United States, and the economic conditions of States 
     and metropolitan areas;
       Whereas many public programs and private transactions are 
     dependent today on the quality of such statistics of the 
     Bureau of Labor Statistics as the unemployment rate and the 
     Consumer Price Index, which play essential roles in the 
     allocation of Federal funds and the adjustment of pensions, 
     welfare payments, private contracts, and other payments to 
     offset the impact of inflation;
       Whereas the Bureau of Labor Statistics pursues these 
     responsibilities with absolute integrity and is known for 
     being unfailingly responsive to the need for new types of 
     information and indexes of change;
       Whereas the Bureau of Labor Statistics has earned an 
     international reputation as a leader in economic and social 
     statistics;
       Whereas the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Internet website, 
     www.bls.gov, began operating in 1995 and meets the public 
     need for timely and accurate information by providing an 
     ever-expanding body of economic data and analysis available 
     to an ever-growing group of online citizens; and
       Whereas the Bureau of Labor Statistics has established the 
     highest standards of professional competence and commitment: 
     Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives 
     concurring), That Congress commends the Bureau of Labor 
     Statistics on the occasion of its 125th anniversary for the 
     exemplary service its administrators and employees provide in 
     collecting and disseminating vital information for the United 
     States.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentlemen from 
Connecticut (Mr. Courtney) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Thompson) each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Connecticut.


                             General Leave

  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, I request 5 legislative days during which 
Members may revise and extend and insert extraneous material on Senate 
Concurrent Resolution 30 into the Record.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Connecticut?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of Senate Concurrent Resolution 
30, which commends the work of the Bureau of Labor Statistics as it 
celebrates its 125th anniversary.
  Since its founding in 1884, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has served 
as the principal factfinding agency for the Federal Government for all 
matters in the fields of labor, economics, and statistics. In this 
capacity, it has collected, analyzed, and disseminated essential labor-
related data to all levels of government, various Federal agencies, and 
the American public.
  As an institution, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has evolved 
throughout its 125 years. Originally serving a broad fact-finding 
mandate, the Bureau has since developed into many specialized arms that 
study a multitude of labor issues, including wages and prices, the 
state of industrial relations, unemployment, demographic shifts, and 
workplace safety conditions.
  The Bureau has stringent criteria for its data and analyses in order 
to ensure that it is not only accurate but relevant to society. As a 
result of rapidly changing economic conditions, the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics has developed a reputation for responsiveness, swiftly 
adjusting its measures and indices to provide citizens and policymakers 
of this Nation with high-quality statistical data.
  In its commitment to disseminate this valuable information, the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics established a Web site in 1995. Since that 
time, a variety of data access tools have been developed, providing 
increased access to the statistical data it analyzes and develops. 
Today, the use of the Web site is over 1,000 times what it was when it 
began, with more than 20 million users in the months of this year 
alone.
  The data and analyses provided by the Bureau are invaluable, 
contributing to policy development process as well as the allocation of 
Federal funds

[[Page H8374]]

and private payments. I commend the work of the Bureau's many 
economists, mathematical statisticians, information technology 
assistants, and administrative specialists as they celebrate an 
impressive 125-year legacy.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in support of this 
important resolution.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of Senate Concurrent Resolution 
30, commending the Bureau of Labor Statistics on its 125th anniversary.
  In our current economic climate, there is a lot of discussion about 
economic data, what the data means for our recovery, and more 
importantly, how many of our fellow citizens are going back to work.
  What is not talked about is the government agency that is responsible 
for gathering this data. For 125 years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 
BLS, has been charged with collecting and examining information related 
to our economic health. According to the BLS mission statement, the 
agency is the principal factfinding body for the Federal Government.
  A survey of any economic analysis demonstrates that this information 
is widely used by academics, Federal and State governments, private 
companies, and news reporters. The agency has more than 2,000 
economists in its headquarters and eight regional offices, gathering 
unemployment data, wage data, safety and health statistics, and a whole 
host of information to provide us with a clear picture of the state of 
the economy across this country. Congress relies on the statistics 
produced by the Bureau for a variety of programs and for guiding a 
myriad of policy decisions.
  The Bureau examines payroll data and various demographics so that we 
have detailed information about employment by hours, by industry, and 
geographic areas. BLS also provides a snapshot of employee benefit 
plans or labor productivity.
  When your children ask if they will ever use anything they learn in 
school in real life, you can point to the economists and statisticians 
at BLS as an example of putting math and science to work. When your 
children complain about how much time that they spend in school, you 
can tell them, according to the American Time Use Survey developed by 
BLS, 9 percent of the population is engaged in educational activities 
daily. I doubt if it brings them any comfort, though. That 9 percent 
spends, on average, 4.5 hours in class and 2.4 hours engaged in 
homework.
  I rise today to commend the staff of the Bureau of Labor Statistics 
for 125 years of dedicated service and urge the passage of S. Con. Res. 
30, commending their service to the Nation. I ask my colleagues to 
support this resolution.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COURTNEY. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Louisiana (Mr. Scalise).
  Mr. SCALISE. I want to thank my friend from Pennsylvania for yielding 
me time, Mr. Speaker. As we're talking about the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics, it's an interesting period in our country's history 
because, just in the last few months since President Obama's taken 
office, our country has lost 2 million more jobs; 2 million more 
Americans are out of work, are part of those statistics. I think it's 
much more than statistics. It's policies by this administration that 
have caused those 2 million Americans to lose their jobs since January.
  If you go back to the stimulus bill, that was the bill that was 
touted at stopping the bleeding. All of us on this side that opposed 
that bill, that opposed spending $800 billion of money that we don't 
have, said back then that that bill would actually make matters worse 
because it was adding mountains of debt to our children and 
grandchildren, but also it wasn't addressing the problems in our 
economy.
  In fact, now we're seeing unemployment at 9.5 percent, approaching 10 
percent, with 2 million more Americans having lost their jobs since 
President Obama took office. And what's this administration saying? Are 
they finally admitting that the stimulus was a failure? No. In fact, 
some in the White House are calling for another stimulus bill, more 
spending.
  In fact, just last week at a convention of the AARP, Vice President 
Joe Biden said, ``We have to go spend money to keep from going 
bankrupt.'' Those are words the Vice President actually said just last 
week.
  And so as this mountain of debt is piling up on the backs of our 
children and grandchildren, as the President is running car companies 
and running banks and running all of these other institutions--with 
over 30 czars, and it's not working--their own Vice President is saying 
they need to spend money to keep from going bankrupt.
  These are ludicrous policies. We have got to go back to common sense. 
We've got to go back to fiscal discipline and start balancing our 
budget like every other State is dealing with their budgets, like 
American families are dealing with these tough economic times as 
they're pulling back and living within their own means. It's the 
Federal Government here in Washington that seems to be out of control 
on a spending frenzy.
  Then, just a few weeks ago, they brought this cap-and-trade national 
energy tax, where they're literally proposing a policy that would run 
millions more American jobs out of this country to places like China 
and India, where they'll actually emit more carbon than we do here in 
America to do the same thing, while rising utility rates on every 
American family.
  The President's own budget director said that the cap-and-trade 
energy tax would add another $1,200 a year to every American family's 
utility bills. So, as they're thinking about turning on their air 
conditioner in the summer, they're going to be thinking about whether 
or not they will pay these higher electricity rates.
  These policies are helping lead to this rapid unemployment that is 
now approaching double digits. And the latest here we have in front of 
us in Congress is this debate over the President and Speaker Pelosi and 
others' proposal to have a government takeover of our health care 
system, where the estimates are that we would have hundreds of billions 
of dollars in new taxes, over $580 billion in new taxes on the backs of 
small businesses.
  You would have $240 billion in fines in their approach on the backs 
of American families, including--get this. This is according to the 
Congressional Budget Office. In the President's takeover, proposal to 
take over the health care system by the government, they have $29 
million in penalties against people who are uninsured. It's in the 
bill.
  They have the ability for this health care czar--a health care czar 
that would literally be able to tell Americans whether or not they can 
see a doctor and which doctor they can see. It actually gives the 
authority to this bureaucrat in Washington to disqualify a company's 
entire health benefits plan.

                              {time}  1545

  So if you like the health care you have, the health care czar in 
their bill allows the health care czar to take your health care 
benefits away.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. I yield 1 additional minute to the 
gentleman from Louisiana.
  Mr. SCALISE. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  If you look at these policies--and the American people out there 
across the country are looking at these policies, and that's a good 
thing because as they look at these policies, and they hear the 
leadership here in Washington, the people running Congress, saying they 
need to ram these policies through before the next 2 weeks are over, I 
think people are figuring it out. They're saying, Wait a minute.
  Many Members who actually voted for that cap-and-trade energy tax 
didn't even read the bill because they dropped 300 pages of amendments 
down the day of the vote. And we know they're going to try to do the 
same thing again on this government takeover of health care, and people 
are sick and tired of it. People are finally saying, Enough is enough; 
control spending and these czars; stop running car companies; stop 
running banks; and, surely, don't try to have some government 
bureaucrat take over our health care system.

[[Page H8375]]

  So hopefully we won't add millions more Americans to these statistics 
that we're talking about today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
  Mr. COURTNEY. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I inquire as to how much 
time is remaining.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Pennsylvania has 12\1/2\ 
minutes remaining, and the gentleman from Connecticut has 18 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. I yield as much time as he may consume 
to Dr. Broun of Georgia.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. I thank my friend from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Thompson) for yielding some time to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to tell you and the American people a labor 
statistic that just came out from CBO last week in testimony before the 
U.S. House. The CBO director said that the ObamaCare Washington 
bureaucrat-run socialized medicine health care bill that's being 
considered here in the U.S. House is going to cost Americans 750,000 
jobs. I think it is a minimum that 750,000 jobs are going to be lost. 
We keep hearing various figures in ObamaCare of the cost of $1 
trillion, $1.5 trillion, $2 trillion. The CBO has not released off-
budget figures. We're just getting a paltry amount of those off-budget 
figures.
  This is going to be extremely, extremely costly to the American 
people. The CBO last week also said that this is not going to lower the 
cost of health care delivery. Mr. Speaker, I am a medical doctor. I 
have practiced medicine for over 3\1/2\ decades. What's fixing to 
happen to the American people, Mr. Speaker--and you need to understand 
that the ObamaCare bill is going to insert a Washington bureaucrat 
between them and their doctors. This Washington bureaucrat is going to 
make decisions for them. It's not going to be made by the patient or 
the patient's family, not by the doctor, but by a Washington bureaucrat 
who is going to ration their care.
  That Washington bureaucrat is going to tell all patients in this 
country, whether in private insurance or public insurance, whether they 
can have a procedure, such as a surgery, that's very needed. This 
Washington bureaucrat is going to tell the American people, the 
patients, whether they can have an MRI that's desperately needed to 
evaluate a cough, a pain in their chest, pain in their knee, pain in 
their low back.
  A Washington bureaucrat is going to make those decisions, Mr. 
Speaker; and I hope the American people are listening today so that 
they can understand what's going to happen if we have ObamaCare. The 
Bureau of Labor Statistics is going to give us more and more bleak news 
if this goes into law about how people's incomes are going to go down, 
literally go down because the health care commissioner, or health czar, 
as Mr. Scalise was talking about, is going to dictate their health care 
policy plan to them, even if it's privately paid for, privately 
administered.
  There are not going to be any more private insurance plans because 
the health care commissioner is going to dictate all the plans in this 
country, every single one of them. We hear over and over, if you like 
your private health insurance plan, keep it. But, Mr. Speaker, not one 
single person in this country, unless they're extremely wealthy--and I 
mean extremely wealthy--is going to be able to keep their private 
health care plan. The reason for that is because most people are 
dependent upon their employer to provide their health insurance. But a 
government bureaucrat is going to tell every single employer in this 
country what kind of health care plan, what kind of limits, what kind 
of coverage, what doctor, everything that plan offers.
  So the plan that they have today is going to be obsolete. It's not 
going to be available anymore. What's even more unfortunate is every 
single employee, worker that does not accept the government-mandated 
plan is going to be fined by the Federal Government, fined for not 
accepting a government-mandated plan.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, that's not freedom. That's socialism. We, in this 
Congress, are going to dictate to employers, employees, to those that 
are buying their own insurance what kind of health care insurance they 
have; and it's going to be disastrous. The cost is going to skyrocket. 
The CBO has already said it's going to cost millions of others jobs. 
People are going to have long waiting times to get the surgery that 
they need, MRIs, and maybe even plain x rays.
  Mr. Speaker, folks in Canada and Great Britain are coming to this 
country now to get health care because we have the best health care in 
the world. We're not going to have anyplace to go because our quality 
of health care is going to be destroyed by the ObamaCare plan. Mr. 
Speaker, the American people need to understand where we're headed. I 
hope the American people will rise up and tell their Members of 
Congress in the House and the Senate ``no'' to ObamaCare.
  Republicans are offering many alternatives that will literally lower 
the cost of health insurance, literally lower the cost of medicines in 
the drugstore, literally empower the doctor-patient relationship into 
how health care decisions are made, and will stop the government from 
dictating things. Mr. Speaker, practicing medicine, I've seen how 
government intrusion into my practices has increased the cost to my 
patients.
  Two good examples: Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability 
and Accountability Act, HIPAA. That act has cost the health care 
industry billions of dollars and has not paid for the first aspirin to 
treat the headaches it has created, and it was totally unneeded 
legislation. Congress passed CLIA, the Clinical Laboratory Improvement 
Act. It ran up the cost of just simple labs that I used to do in my 
office to extraordinarily higher costs to patients, thus increasing the 
cost of the insurance to every person.
  We are being offered an expansion of Medicare or an expansion of 
Medicaid. We already see tremendous problems in both of those programs. 
Mr. Speaker, ObamaCare is going to expand those; and we're going to 
have more fraud, more abuse, more waste, higher costs because of 
government intrusion into the health care system. Mr. Speaker, 
ObamaCare is going to put the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics into 
overtime, providing more statistics, more job losses, lower wages, more 
people out of work and higher costs for all goods and services in this 
country. They're going to give us data in the future of a poor economy.
  Stealing our grandchildren's future has to stop, and I hope the 
American people will stand up and say ``no'' to the cap-and-tax or tax-
and-trade bill that's in the Senate and ObamaCare.
  Mr. COURTNEY. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I don't have any 
additional speakers, so I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, again, the resolution which we're focused 
on is about celebrating 125 years of great work by the people from the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics. Obviously the discussion, because the rules 
of our House permit it, sort of went off into different areas. I would 
like to just quickly note two things: number one, the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics would demonstrate or would show that we've had serious job 
losses over the last 6 months; but it would also show that in the final 
quarter of 2008, the GDP of this country dropped by 6 percent, the 
biggest drop since the Great Depression. Obviously, it was the policies 
which preceded that downturn that have created the situation and the 
environment that we're in right now.
  Given the fact, as the Bureau would show, we have exhausted almost 
every tool in the monetary toolbox in terms of lowering interest rates, 
it was critical for our country to step in and use fiscal policy as a 
way of turning this country around. And if we look at the bipartisan 
Governors conference, which met this past weekend, Republican and 
Democratic Governors all acknowledged that the fiscal relief that came 
through Medicaid payment boosts, through increases in education 
spending through the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, through increased 
funding in title I and special education literally made the difference 
of whether dozens of States were able to balance their budgets in this 
critical downturn.
  Go ask a Realtor in this country whether or not the stimulus bill, 
which

[[Page H8376]]

provides a first-time home buyer tax credit, has, in fact, revived the 
real estate market, because they will tell you a resounding ``yes.'' I 
know in my district we saw a 4 percent increase in home sales; and 
every single Realtor that was interviewed--in the reporting, again, 
that came out from the government on that increase in sales--attributed 
the stimulus package and the first-time home buyer tax credit for the 
fact that we are seeing that turnaround.
  Now as we see the infrastructure dollars filter their way through the 
bidding process, which every State must conduct for surface 
transportation projects, we are going to see an uptick in construction 
and building trades from the stimulus package.
  The other brief mention and the second point I want to make is, 
again, I respect Dr. Broun for his profession and many of the doctors 
that serve in the House of Representatives. But as we listen to some of 
the hysterical statements about the health care reform initiative, I 
would point out that the American Medical Association, the largest 
trade group which represents doctors all across this country, came out 
foursquare in support of the House health care reform bill.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. COURTNEY. I will not yield because I sat and listened to 
representations about that plan which are inaccurate in terms of what 
it's going to do, in terms of patient choice, but certainly, and more 
importantly, in how providers are going to be treated. Because the AMA 
and the American College of Surgeons came out loud and clear in support 
of this measure and for good reason, because they know that we have a 
system which is in desperate need of reform.
  In conclusion, regarding this resolution before us, when we make 
choices, both as policymakers in the legislative branch and the 
executive branch, the key is that we need good data. We need to see 
where we're going as a Nation, and the people who work at the Bureau of 
Labor Statistics provide decision-makers and policymakers that 
opportunity with the great work that they do. I think it's wonderful 
that on a bipartisan basis we're able to come together, celebrate and 
recognize the great work that they do.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Peters). The question is on the motion 
offered by the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney) that the House 
suspend the rules and concur in the concurrent resolution, S. Con. Res. 
30.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds 
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
  Mr. BROUN of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and 
nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be 
postponed.

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