[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 109 (Thursday, July 22, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H5926-H5938]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF SENATE AMENDMENT TO HOUSE AMENDMENT TO 
SENATE AMENDMENT TO H.R. 4213, UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION EXTENSION ACT 
                                OF 2010

  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee 
on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1550 and ask for its immediate 
consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 1550

       Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be 
     in order to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 
     4213) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to extend 
     certain expiring provisions, and for other purposes, with the 
     Senate amendment to the House amendment to the Senate 
     amendment thereto, and to consider in the House, without 
     intervention of any point of order except those arising under 
     clause 10 of rule XXI, a motion offered by the chair of the 
     Committee on Ways and Means or his designee that the House 
     concur in the Senate amendment to the House amendment to the 
     Senate amendment. The Senate amendment shall be considered as 
     read. The motion shall be debatable for one hour equally 
     divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority 
     member of the Committee on Ways and Means. The previous 
     question shall be considered as ordered on the motion to 
     final adoption without intervening motion.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Florida is recognized for 
1 hour.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, 
I yield the customary 30 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from 
North Carolina, Dr. Foxx. All time yielded during consideration of the 
rule is for debate only.


                             General Leave

  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that 
all Members be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend 
their remarks on House Resolution 1550.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Florida?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I 
may consume.
  This resolution provides for consideration of the Senate amendment to 
the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 4213, the 
Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2010, finally.
  The rule makes in order a motion offered by the chair of the 
Committee on Ways and Means or his designee that the House concur in 
the Senate amendment to the House amendment to the Senate amendment to 
H.R. 4213. The rule provides 1 hour of debate on the motion equally 
divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the 
Committee on Ways and Means.
  The rule waives all points of order against consideration of the 
motion except those arising under clause 10 of rule XXI. Finally, the 
rule provides that the Senate amendment shall be considered as read.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4213, the Restoration of Emergency Unemployment 
Compensation Act of 2010, ensures that much-needed Federal assistance 
continues to reach the millions of Americans struggling to find a job, 
trying to keep their homes and doing the best they can to provide for 
their families.
  This legislation is long overdue with unemployment benefits having 
expired on June 1 of this year. Though I am pleased that this 
legislation is retroactive to that date, millions of Americans who 
desperately needed our support were left hanging by the egregious 
obstructionism that prevented this legislation from moving forward.
  While the other party is content with giving themselves a pat on the 
back for every roadblock they throw in front of the Democratic bill, I 
remind my colleagues that they are playing with the livelihoods of 
countless, hardworking Americans. What is merely a political win for 
them is, in reality, another family that can't make rent, can't send 
their kids to college, or can't pay their medical bills.
  As we are well aware, much of the debate surrounding this bill has 
centered on its cost. Now, we, in the Democratic Party, believe that 
balancing the budget is vital for our long-term prosperity, but it 
cannot be done on the backs of struggling Americans.
  Over the past few weeks, my Republican colleagues have railed on 
about Democrats not cutting the deficit or spending beyond our means. 
But I wonder if my Republicans colleagues have looked in the mirror 
lately.
  I have been here for some time; and I can't, for the life of me, 
remember any calls for fiscal discipline when their party was cutting 
taxes for millionaires and billionaires, sending a blank check 
overseas, or squandering $127 billion Federal budget surplus.
  Time and again, my colleagues' actions simply do not match their 
rhetoric. Further cutting the budget and denying unemployment benefits 
aren't going to make jobs magically appear.

                              {time}  1030

  Such actions will only cause our economy to contract and leave more 
people out in the cold. Our economy needs a deliberate, targeted 
approach to job creation and economic growth, and that is what 
Democrats will provide.
  To say, as my colleagues often do, that Democrats are moving in the 
wrong direction and doing nothing to create jobs is simply a bold-faced 
lie. Over the last 1\1/2\ years we've gone from a period of negative 
growth to consistent increases in our GDP. We've gone from 22 months of 
job loss to 6 straight months of private-sector job creation, albeit 
not nearly enough. We've gone from shuttered factories to the largest 
12-month gain in industrial production since 1998. Make no mistake, job 
creation is the number one priority for Democrats, but as the job 
market recovers, there remain far too many who are out of work and 
losing hope.
  While my Republican colleagues question the need to lend a hand to 
those who are struggling, I question their aversion to provide 
opportunity to those who have none. Maybe there are no poor people in 
some of my colleagues' districts, but in the district that I am 
privileged to represent, people are hurting. From Pahokee to Pembroke 
Pines, people simply cannot find work. They are pounding the pavement, 
willing to take anything that comes their way, and in the meantime they 
need our help.
  You see, Mr. Speaker, what Republicans seem to consider reckless 
spending, the people in the district that I serve consider a vital 
lifeline. There are 170,000 Floridians that are unemployed at this 
time. What Republicans

[[Page H5927]]

call government waste, the American people call an essential government 
service. And what Republicans see as a bloated budget, our citizens see 
as the only thing that is keeping them from financial ruin.
  The other party can continue to play political theater, but we have 
serious work to do. The American people cannot afford to wait a second 
longer. They need this extension. They deserve this extension. And we 
will not let Republican obstructionism prevent them from getting this 
extension.
  And, Mr. Speaker, I will make a prediction for you. After all of the 
talk for all of these months, all of the obstruction to us having 
unemployment compensation extended that had been routinely extended 
since 1959 without the kind of obstruction that it met, particularly in 
the other body, I predict for you that a significant number of our 
Republican colleagues today are going to vote for unemployment 
compensation. And in that regard, I'm glad they came to the dance, 
albeit a little late.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I thank my colleague, the gentleman from Florida, for yielding time.
  Mr. Speaker, today I rise in opposition to this closed rule providing 
for consideration of H.R. 4213, a bill extending unemployment 
insurance. Republicans know that we must reduce the deficit, and if the 
underlying bill had been paid for, Republicans would have gladly 
supported it, but it is not.
  Undoubtedly, the American people are suffering from the actions of 
this Democrat-controlled Congress. We go home every weekend and our 
constituents tell us that their concerns are both jobs and the debt. In 
fact, they tell us every weekend they are frightened to death for the 
future of this country. I've never had constituents tell me that before 
this year.
  The simple truth is that while the liberals have repeatedly claimed 
their $1 trillion 2009 stimulus plan was the right thing to do, it's 
hard to tell that from looking at the job situation across the U.S. The 
American people are facing high unemployment rates and economic 
uncertainty. In fact, we have a quote from our distinguished Chair of 
the Federal Reserve, ``Economic future unusually uncertain'' is the 
headline in The Washington Times today. But we need to go back to the 
drawing board and come back to the American people with real, 
commonsense solutions to their real problems that we must be willing to 
pay for.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, at this time I am very pleased 
to yield 2 minutes to a former member of the Rules Committee, a good 
friend of mine, the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).
  Mr. WELCH. I thank the gentleman from Florida.
  The question of unemployment benefits being conflated with the debt 
that was caused by tax cuts that we couldn't afford--$2.3 trillion--by 
a war that was on the credit card, President Bush's war in Iraq that 
cost over $1 trillion and rising, a Medicare part D program unfunded, 
put on the credit card, that drove this economy into a ditch. If 
there's going to be honest discussion about what caused this debt, then 
we've got to go back in history--and not distant history--to 
acknowledge that it was the reckless spending policies of the 
Republican administration and George Bush that contributed more to this 
debt than any other administration in the history of this entire 
country.
  George Bush, in 8 years, accumulated more debt by more reckless 
decisions than all of the Presidents who preceded him. All of those 
decisions, incidentally, were discretionary decisions: A war of 
choice--wrong war, wrong time--put on the credit card of the American 
taxpayers; tax cuts that did not stimulate the economy but burdened us 
with generations of debt; a Medicare prescription drug program where 
the choice was not only to put it on the credit card but to make it 
embedded in law the unwillingness of the Federal Government to 
negotiate bulk price discounts with the drug companies. It guaranteed 
high prices at the expense of the taxpayers and our consumers. That is 
the legacy of debt that brought us to this situation.
  Then, there is some joint responsibility. This economic collapse we 
had as a result of the implosion of Wall Street that happened basically 
2 years ago today, there were many reasons for that, but it was excess 
debt, reckless speculation on the part of the folks on Wall Street, and 
it led to this economic crisis that we have right now.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 
seconds.
  Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, when it comes to providing unemployment 
benefits for people who had no responsibility for getting us here, when 
it comes to the question of who is going to pay the price, should it be 
the victims of these reckless decisions, the squandering of choices 
that we had to make the right decision at the right time to build jobs? 
Should the people who are the victims of reckless policies in 
Washington--and in many cases by the Republican administration, in some 
cases because of joint lax regulation by both administrations, 
Democratic and Republican--are we going to impose the burden of those 
bad choices on the people who had no responsibility and are the 
victims? That would be wrong.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I now would like to yield 6 minutes to the 
distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock).
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. I thank the gentlelady for yielding.
  I would say in response that, yes, George W. Bush was responsible for 
what was then the worst debt in the Nation. That was a terrible public 
policy, and I make no apologies for it. But it needs to be pointed out 
that this administration and this Congress in just 2 years have run up 
as much debt as the irresponsible Bush administration did in all 8 
years combined. Yes, that was irresponsible fiscal policy. Why in the 
world would you want to exacerbate and continue that bad policy? 
Republicans have learned their lesson. It appears that lesson has not 
yet been learned on the other side of the aisle.
  Mr. Speaker, anyone who has experienced firsthand the quiet panic 
that stalks every waking hour of an unemployed family knows how 
frightening and debilitating is chronic unemployment. You watch your 
savings evaporate, you watch your children going without the material 
things that their friends enjoy, and you count down the months or even 
days until you won't be able to make that crucial rent or house 
payment.

                              {time}  1040

  That unemployment check is a lifeline in such times, and I fully 
appreciate and understand how desperately an unemployed family is 
looking to the security of getting 99 weeks of such checks, but I can't 
go along with this for a simple reason: The only way out of this 
nightmare of unemployment for these families is a job.
  Speaker Pelosi and others have said the most important thing we can 
do to create jobs is to extend unemployment benefits to 99 weeks 
because the unemployed would spend this money and stimulate the 
economy. Well, this analysis completely ignores the harsh and glaring 
fact that, before this money can be put back into the economy, it must 
first be taken out of the very same economy.
  We will have to take $34 billion more out of the economy in order to 
finance these extra benefits through November. In fact, this is the 
eighth such extension, totaling $120 billion. That means over $1,600 
from the pocket of an average family of four in America. Since we don't 
have that money, we will have to borrow it from exactly the same 
capital pool that would otherwise have been available to loan to 
businesses seeking to expand jobs or to home buyers seeking to reenter 
the housing market or to consumers seeking to make consumer purchases.
  Remember, two-thirds of economic growth depend upon consumer 
spending, but that money now won't be there to loan for jobs and homes 
and economic growth. This is $34 billion of relief to the unemployed 
that they desperately need and that I desperately wish we could 
responsibly extend, but to do so would also mean $34 billion of fewer 
jobs. It would mean perpetuating this never-ending nightmare of 
unemployment for these families and, indeed, throwing more families 
into that nightmare.

[[Page H5928]]

  We have been told for several years now by Presidents Bush and Obama 
that stimulus spending would help the economy, but it hasn't, and there 
is a reason it hasn't. Government cannot inject a single dollar into 
the economy that it has not first taken out of that very same economy. 
Government cannot provide a dollar of temporary relief to the 
unemployed without first removing a dollar of permanent relief for the 
unemployed--namely, a job.
  The talking point du jour from the other side is, well, the 
Republicans have no problems giving tax breaks to the wealthy but won't 
extend a lifeline to the unemployed. Well, once again, they just don't 
get it.
  Milton Friedman once observed that spending is the effective rate of 
taxation. Spending can only be paid for in two ways--either by current 
taxes or by future taxes to retire borrowing. High taxes and deficits 
are just the symptom. The problem is the spending, and this is a 
spending bill.
  On May 9 of 1939, after nearly a decade of unemployment checks and 
stimulus spending and with unemployment at 17.2 percent, Franklin 
Roosevelt's Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, made this 
stunning admission during a meeting with Democratic members of the 
House Ways and Means Committee:
  He said, No, gentlemen. We have tried spending money. We are spending 
more than we have ever spent before, and it does not work. I have just 
one interest, and if I am wrong, as far as I am concerned, somebody 
else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to 
see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have 
never made good on our promises. I say, after 8 years of this 
administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started 
and an enormous debt to boot.
  Mr. Speaker, let us heed the lessons of history before we totally 
destroy our economy. Perpetual unemployment checks put these desperate 
families farther and farther away from the only thing that can truly 
end their suffering--a real job. That is a fact nobody around here 
wants to face, but until we do, chronic unemployment will continue to 
stalk the land, and God forbid, a few years from now, another 
Democratic Treasury Secretary will have to make the same admission as 
Henry Morgenthau did 71 years ago.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I can't believe what I just 
heard.
  I heard what Franklin Roosevelt said. I've read what Franklin 
Roosevelt said. I was alive during that period of time, and I saw what 
happened during Franklin Roosevelt's administration. My parents, among 
many others, got jobs during that period of time, and they came out of 
the Depression, and this country soared as a result of the policies of 
the Roosevelt administration. We will be very wise in this country if 
we could possibly implement the wonderful things that he did.
  I yield, Mr. Speaker, 3 minutes to my good friend, the distinguished 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).
  (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from California just said 
that, by extending and perpetuating unemployment benefits to families, 
it will somehow destroy the economic future of these families. Everyone 
is entitled to their own opinions, Mr. Speaker.
  I think the reality is, if you take away people's ability to pay 
their rent or their utility bills or their credit card bills, you 
absolutely destroy them. The issue before the House today is whether or 
not 2.5 million Americans, whose unemployment benefits have expired or 
are about to expire, should get extensions. I emphatically believe that 
they should.
  Now, the argument that we have heard from the other side--first, 
about not even taking a vote on this issue and now against extending 
those benefits--is twofold.
  The first, which we just heard a version of, is that to extend their 
unemployment benefits somehow zaps the incentive for people to look for 
jobs. I would challenge anybody who makes that assertion to go meet 10 
or 100 or 500 unemployed people and ask them just how many want ads 
they have circled, just how many resumes they have sent out, and just 
how hard they have looked for jobs, and I think that will put that 
argument to rest.
  The second argument is a good faith argument that people do not want 
to add to the national debt. First of all, this is a selective 
argument. Nearly two-thirds of the national debt was accumulated during 
the administrations of Presidents Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George 
W. Bush.
  Most recently, when the past administration added to the national 
debt by prosecuting an endless occupation of Iraq with borrowed money, 
virtually no one on the other side raised this issue. Most recently, 
when the prior administration dramatically reduced the taxes of the top 
5 percent of the people in this country by borrowing the money, 
virtually no one on the other side raised this issue.
  Today, Members on the other side, both in the other body and here, 
have taken the position that, while extending benefits to janitors and 
bus drivers and salespeople who have lost their jobs is somehow 
fiscally irresponsible if you don't offset it, extending tax breaks to 
the top 5 percent of the people in the country on a permanent basis is 
completely responsible.
  So, in other words, the person who was laid off from her job of 
cleaning an office building can't get unemployment benefits unless 
there is a spending cut or a tax increase to pay for it, but the person 
who owns the office building, who could get a $500,000 tax cut, could 
get that with borrowed money. This makes no sense.
  What does make sense is a ``yes'' vote on today's bill.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Heller).
  Mr. HELLER. I appreciate the gentlewoman's extending some time.
  Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to be here in front of you and to spend 
some time talking about these unemployment benefits that we have in 
front of us today.
  We had some, of course, unfortunate information come out of the 
administration as to the unemployment numbers for the last month. They 
actually went up in the State of Nevada. Right now, the unemployment 
rate in the State of Nevada is at 14.2 percent. In the city of Las 
Vegas, that unemployment number is at 14.5 percent. That is the worst 
unemployment of any place across this Nation, so it is very 
disheartening. The question, I guess, that I have, Mr. Speaker, is:
  Who do we hold responsible? Who do we hold responsible for the failed 
economic policies of this Congress and this administration?
  I want to make it clear that I do not believe that the unemployed are 
the ones who should be held accountable for these failures. Despite the 
promises from this administration that a stimulus bill would cap 
unemployment at 8 percent, we are seeing across this Nation numbers 
much higher than that. We continue to see Nevada grow from 10 percent, 
11 percent, 12 percent, and now to 14.2 percent. It was supposed to be 
an immediate jolt. Clearly, it didn't happen. The truth is the stimulus 
has failed the American people and the people of the great State of 
Nevada.
  I want to read a letter that I received recently from one of my 
constituents, Heidi, from the city of Sparks, Nevada.
  She writes, ``I need you to really try and understand just how 
difficult things are for some, if not most of us, still unemployed here 
in the lovely State of Nevada.

                              {time}  1050

  ``I have been unemployed for just about 6 months now. My husband was 
laid off back in November, recently took a job for a considerably less 
amount just to get a job. I have been on several interviews, filled out 
countless applications, and sent my resume to countless companies.''
  Heidi worked for the same company for 6 years, her husband, laid off 
after working 13 years.
  It just goes to expand the failed policies that we're seeing here in 
this Congress, coming out of this Congress and coming out of the 
administration.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Will the gentleman yield? I will yield the 
gentleman 15 seconds of my time if he would answer a question.
  Mr. HELLER. I will be more than happy to.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. What do you think would have happened had 
the stimulus bill not passed?

[[Page H5929]]

  Mr. HELLER. In other words, you're asking me what would have happened 
if we took all this money out of the private sector and put it in the 
public sector? Is that the question you're asking me?
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. What would have happened to those teachers, 
what would have happened to those police officers who kept their jobs?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman's 15 seconds has expired.
  Mr. HELLER. Mr. Speaker, I believe we need private sector money given 
to private sector government given to private people, not more public 
jobs. And that's what the other side continues to argue.
  But I will tell you that Members on both sides, both sides of the 
aisle are trying to help the unemployed. But what the argument here is, 
do we continue to add $34 billion to the $13 trillion in debt that we 
now have here in this country. And that's the argument.
  And if you want to ask another question, how do you plan on paying 
for it, there was a rule. There was an opportunity for the Rules 
Committee to pay for this.
  How often is the left and how often is the majority party saying that 
the unemployment is a stimulus to this economy? That's great. And if 
you want to go down that road, what I would argue is then take the 
stimulus dollars that are unused and use it to pay for these 
unemployment benefits. You can do it. You can do it. It's not that you 
can't do it; it's that you won't do it. And that makes no sense.
  I had that substitute amendment in the Rules Committee. Of course it 
failed. I think it's unfortunate. What we're doing here today is that 
we're going to pass this bill. I'm going to vote against the rule. I 
will vote for the bill, but I'm voting against the rule.
  And the problem with this is we're going to pass this bill and what 
we're going to do is we're going to go on a 6-week vacation. That's 
what we're doing here. We're going to go on a 6-week vacation. And what 
we're going to say is that, hey, we're going to extend these 
unemployment benefits, but we're going to get full pay for 6 weeks 
while we're on vacation. Why don't we stay here, Mr. Speaker?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Ms. FOXX. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
  Mr. HELLER. I want to stay here over the 6-week period, put some 
economic, bipartisan economic policies together so the people like 
Heidi from the city of Sparks, Nevada, can get a job. I think that's 
what we ought to be doing here in Washington, D.C. instead of casting a 
vote, ducking and hiding, running out for a 6-week vacation.
  I ask a question: Who's to be held responsible for the failed 
economic policies of this Congress and this administration? And I don't 
believe it should be the unemployed.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it doesn't take a degree in 
trigonometry to understand that if you spend $34 billion helping 
unemployed people who should have been helped in the first place much 
longer ago, and according to the Congressional Budget Office, a very 
neutral concern that analyzes these matters, for every dollar spent, 
$1.90 comes back into the economy. That would, by my count, add up to 
spending $34 billion and having come into the economy $64.6 billion.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), my good friend.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, it is simply the morally right 
thing to do. And as I listen to the bantering and the chattering and 
the constant obstructionist policies of my friends, Republicans in this 
body and the other body, I'm amazed that there is no moral compass to 
say that millions of Americans, those who have worked, are simply 
asking that they be able to survive.
  This is not a handout. This is a trust, a contract, that when you 
work you invest in unemployment insurance to a certain extent, first 
given by the States, and now, because the States have run out of money, 
our federal government, their government is extending those dollars. 
And we know that it's the right thing to do because those people on the 
other side of the aisle have allowed this obstructionism to go forward, 
but they couldn't fight it anymore.
  They couldn't fight 62 percent of the American public who said this 
is the right thing to do. They couldn't fight the Congressional Budget 
Office who said this is the most cost-effective and fast-acting 
infusion of dollars to help people pay their mortgage and food and car 
payments and to stay off the streets, and to improve the economy.
  And further, Mr. Speaker, Chairman Bernanke said, It's no time for 
the deficit hawks to raise their heads. Continuing to stimulate the 
economy is the right approach.
  What we, as Democrats, are doing, infusing dollars into the economy, 
is the best approach to get the economy to grow. Corporate revenues 
grew in the last quarter, but corporations are hoarding their money, 
for now. I believe we will see more job creation soon.
  We are creating jobs and therefore we must continue to stimulate this 
economy by these unemployed individuals having resources to buy into 
the economy and to make a difference.
  I thank the gentleman very much for yielding and allowing me to say 
that all of the economists point to the fact that we're doing the right 
thing. I ask the Republicans to join us today and stand as Americans 
and do what is right for America.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4213, ``The American Jobs and 
Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010''. I am primarily concerned with the 
unemployment provision in this piece of legislation. If passed, this 
bill will restore unemployment aid to 2.5 million Americans who have 
lost their benefits and are still seeking work in this emerging 
economy. It will give hope to the long-term unemployed and allow them a 
chance to survive by extending their benefits to November 30th, 2010.
  Mr. Speaker, if there is a single federal program that is absolutely 
critical to people in communities all across this nation at this time, 
it would be unemployment compensation benefits. Unemployed Americans 
must have a means to subsist, while continuing to look for work that in 
many parts of the country is just not there. Families have to feed 
children. Unemployed workers, many of whom rely on public 
transportation, need to be able to get to potential employers' places 
of work. Utility payments must be paid. Most people use their 
unemployment benefits to pay for the basics. No one is getting rich 
from unemployment benefits, because the weekly benefit checks are 
solely providing for basic food, medicine, gasoline and other necessary 
things many individuals with no other means of income are not able to 
afford.
  Personal and family savings have been exhausted and 401(Ks) have been 
tapped, leaving many individuals and families desperate for some type 
of assistance until the economy improves and additional jobs are 
created. The extension of unemployment benefits for the long-term 
unemployed is an emergency. You do not play with people's lives when 
there is an emergency. We are in a crisis. Just ask someone who has 
been unemployed and looking for work, and they will tell you the same.
  With a national unemployment rate of 9.5 percent, preventing and 
prolonging people from receiving unemployment benefits is a national 
tragedy. In the city of Houston, the unemployment rate stands at 8.3 
percent as almost 250,000 individuals remain unemployed. Indeed, I can 
not tell you how difficult it has been to explain to my constituents 
who are unemployed that there will be no further extension of 
unemployment benefits until the Congress acts. Whether the 
justification for inaction is the size of the debt or the need for 
deficit reduction, it is clear that it is more prudent to act 
immediately to give individuals and families looking for work a means 
to survive.

  H.R. 4213 is just the right measure at the right time. The 
legislation will send a message to the nation's unemployed, that this 
Congress is dedicated to helping those trying to help themselves. Until 
the economy begins to create more jobs at a much faster pace, and the 
various stimulus programs continue to accelerate project activity in 
local communities, we cannot sit idly and ignore the unemployed. As 
such, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 4213.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), the distinguished ranking 
member of the Rules Committee.
  (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, let me begin by expressing my appreciation 
to my very good friend from Grandfather Community North Carolina for 
her thoughtful approach in dealing with what is obviously an 
extraordinarily difficult issue.

[[Page H5930]]

  Night before last I had one of the telephone town hall meetings that 
many of our colleagues have regularly now, and there was an unemployed 
truck driver who was on the line saying that he had, for 1 year, been 
looking for a job. I said, are you going out every day? And he said, 
well, actually I'm going out every other day because I've got 
responsibilities taking care of my family. But he said that he is out 
working very hard to find a job. And he said we need to do what we can 
to ensure that those of us who are hurting do have access to those 
benefits.
  Then he went on to say, after I had talked about the desire for us 
to, with our $1 trillion-plus budget, we have a budget well in excess 
of $1 trillion, that we might be able to find $34 billion to pay for 
this.
  He said, that makes so much sense. He said, please try to do that. 
And when you do it, then we'll be able to have the unemployment 
benefits that we need right now just to survive.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, the notion of pay-as-you-go was not a Republican 
initiative. It was an initiative led by Democrats; and, in fact, as we 
saw the Democrats emerge to majority, pay-as-you-go has been the Holy 
Grail. In fact, we've heard constantly that pay-as-you-go would be 
utilized to deal with spending legislation, meaning we would offset it 
by bringing about spending cuts in other areas.

                              {time}  1100

  Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that my friend Mr. Heller was absolutely 
right when he came before the Rules Committee this morning and made his 
case that he proposed an offset so that this truck driver in southern 
California with whom I spoke 2 nights ago would be able to get his 
benefits, and we would also be able to do what this unemployed truck 
driver wants, and that is for us to do what he said was a commonsense 
approach, to pay for it. I think Mr. Heller really hit the nail right 
on the head when he said you can do it; it's just that you won't do it.
  I have to say, and I said this when I stood here yesterday, Mr. 
Speaker, I like to be a positive, Ronald Reagan optimist. But when we 
know that the majority can in fact pay for this and they know that we 
are desperately concerned about the fact that an attempt is being made, 
as Mr. McClintock pointed out in his thoughtful remarks, that we're 
exacerbating the spending problem, which did go on under the Bush 
administration, but has gotten substantially worse in the last 18 
months--in fact, we all know we've seen an 84 percent increase in 
nondefense discretionary spending. And so we've said, okay, we'll go 
along, and we want to see if we can find in this $1 trillion-plus 
budget $34 billion to offset so that we can pay for these benefits.
  The other side of the aisle has chosen not to do it, I think in large 
part to put some of us in a position of saying, well, if you're not 
going to do this, if you're just going to blindly continue with $34 
billion in additional spending, we're not going to go for it. And what 
is it they want to do, Mr. Speaker? They of course want to paint us as 
being on the other side of those who are trying to make ends meet.
  Again, we've seen constantly this class warfare argument. And to me 
it's a failed argument. I like to quote the late Senator Paul Tsongas. 
We are very pleased to have his widow serve here as our colleague from 
Massachusetts. Senator Tsongas had this very clear approach when he was 
running for President in 1992. He said, ``The problem with my 
Democratic Party is that they love employees, but they hate 
employers.''
  And, Mr. Speaker, as you look at that argument, this perpetuation of 
class warfare, tax cuts for the rich, throwing people who are on 
unemployment out into the streets without having any concern for them 
whatsoever, that argument really falls very flat because I believe that 
the American people understand that we truly do care. We do want to 
create opportunity for everyone. And those who are desperately in need 
should in fact have their needs met. And we want to do what we can.
  Now, I will say that this measure extends for people going onto 
unemployment, unemployment benefits for 99 weeks. Ninety-nine weeks. 
Now, that's almost 2 years. Now, I hope very much, as Mr. Heller said, 
that we can put into place a bipartisan approach, a bipartisan approach 
to deal with economic policy that can get this economy growing.
  We know that we were promised an unemployment rate that would not 
exceed 8 percent if we passed the $1 trillion stimulus bill. And in 
part of the area that I represent in southern California, the 
unemployment rate is 14.4 percent. Statewide for us in California, just 
announced this week, it's 12.3 percent. Nationally, it's 9.5 percent. 
Well, it's well in excess of what we were promised.
  So why don't we try to do what has succeeded in the past, using again 
the model of John F. Kennedy and the model of Ronald Reagan. When John 
F. Kennedy's economic growth plan was put into place in 1961, marginal 
rate reduction, growth-oriented, growth-oriented tax cuts. I was just 
talking to my friend Mr. Welch, the gentleman from Vermont. And it's 
true every tax cut does not generate economic growth. But if we had 
growth-oriented tax cuts, we could do, I would hope, what John F. 
Kennedy was able to do in the 1960s. He saw a 60 percent increase in 
the flow of revenues to the Federal Treasury. Economic growth generated 
more revenues.
  We know that we need to increase revenues. We desperately need to 
increase revenues to deal with the spending that has taken place, and 
to try and pay down this $13 trillion debt. In the 1980s the increased 
flow of revenues to the Treasury was 90 percent when the Ronald Reagan 
tax plan was put into place. It's a bipartisan approach, exactly what 
Mr. Heller said.
  Mr. Speaker, let's use that as our model, which will be substantially 
better than what is being put before us today.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, would you be so kind as to tell 
me the remaining time for both sides?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Florida has 14 minutes 
remaining. The gentlewoman from North Carolina has 10\1/2\ minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the 
distinguished gentleman, my good friend and colleague on the Rules 
Committee, Mr. McGovern.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and the underlying bill. 
Mr. Speaker, all I can say is it's about time. And to my friends on the 
other side of the aisle, let me say it's a shame that it has taken this 
long. For 7 weeks, millions of Americans who have lost their jobs 
through no fault of their own have worried about how they are going to 
pay for their groceries, pay for their rent, pay for their mortgage, or 
pay for their children's college tuitions. They have sat around their 
kitchen tables and made tough decisions about their family budgets. And 
through this all they have continued to apply for job after job after 
job.
  That's what unemployed Americans have been doing during these last 7 
weeks. But what have the Senate Republicans done to help them, to 
restore benefits to Americans who have earned them through a lifetime 
of work? They've done nothing. My friends on the other side of the 
aisle talked about the need to extend the Bush tax cuts for their 
wealthy friends, which they don't want to pay for.
  I mean here's the deal: they don't worry about the deficit when it 
comes to tax cuts for millionaires, but when it comes to working people 
who are confronting difficult times, who are faced with an emergency, 
all of a sudden they got religion when it comes to the deficit. They 
made a lot of noise about characterizing unemployment benefits as a 
government handout or somehow encouraging lazy behavior. But I would 
challenge any of my Republican colleagues to say those things face-to-
face to someone who has been out of work for a year, who has applied 
for job after job after job after job without getting a response.
  Mr. Speaker, the facts don't lie. According to the nonpartisan 
Congressional Budget Office, extending unemployment benefits is the 
most efficient way for the government to generate economic growth. Each 
$1 spent on unemployment benefits creates up to $1.90 in economic 
output. Extending these benefits also creates jobs and decreases the 
chances that we slip into a double-dip recession.

[[Page H5931]]

  In every other economic crisis in American history, Democrats and 
Republicans have put aside their partisan differences and provided 
emergency unemployment benefits to those Americans who have lost their 
jobs.
  Mr. Speaker, House Democrats did our job. On July 1, we passed an 
extension of benefits that would have restored benefits for those who 
lost them in early June. It would have also ensured that jobless 
Americans would have the peace of mind of knowing that benefits were 
available to them to the end of November while they continue to apply 
for jobs. And since then we have worked and reworked this benefits 
extension to try to address Republican concerns. But every time, every 
single time we have been stonewalled by Republican obstructionism. They 
would rather use unemployed Americans as political pawns instead of 
restoring benefits to good, decent, hardworking people who have earned 
them over a lifetime of work.
  Mr. Speaker, enough is enough. Enough of the politics. Let us extend 
these benefits to the hardworking people who have lost their jobs, who 
are dealing with this difficult economic time. This is the right thing 
to do. This is the decent thing to do. We should have done it a long 
time ago. I urge my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying 
bill.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I have to remind my colleagues across the aisle again that the 
Democrats have been in control of Congress since January 2007, and we 
have had a Democrat in the White House for almost 2 years. So the 
Democrats have been in control and Republicans are in the minority, and 
the Democrats can do what they want to because of their numbers in 
Congress.
  While the Obama administration continues its so-called summer of 
recovery, Mr. Speaker, claiming the Democrats' stimulus bill saved or 
created 3 million jobs, the facts are 47 out of 50 States have lost 
jobs since the stimulus passed. Republicans on the Ways and Means 
Committee released a report on Tuesday that showed this data, and I 
would like to insert this report into the Record.
  Mr. Speaker, this report compares the number of jobs created in each 
State that the administration currently claims in a White House report 
issued July 14 with the actual change in jobs since the stimulus became 
law as documented by the administration's own Department of Labor. It 
shows that only Alaska, Kentucky, and North Dakota, along with the 
District of Columbia, have shown any real job growth since the stimulus 
passed. And even in those States, the official job creation has fallen 
far short of administration claims.

                              {time}  1110

  The administration claims that every State and the District of 
Columbia have seen a positive job growth. This is simply not true when 
you look at the actual numbers from the Department of Labor.
  And let me say that in Alaska, only 2,200 jobs have been created 
since the stimulus passed. In Kentucky, 2,400 jobs; and in North 
Dakota, only 5,100 jobs. And most of us know that in North Dakota it's 
because of the discovery of energy. And that compares with what the 
administration has said they created 8,000 in North Dakota, they claim 
41,000 in Kentucky, they claim 7,000 in Alaska. So the numbers are 
quite different.
  But let me point out that in the District of Columbia where there are 
government jobs that have been created and lobbyist jobs that have been 
created as a result of this administration's policies, there are 7,800 
jobs. So the bulk of the jobs that have been created are government 
jobs.
  Republicans don't think this is right, neither do the American people 
think this is right. We need real jobs in the private sector.

   47 Out of 50 States Have Lost Jobs Since Democrats' Stimulus Law--
                         Tuesday, July 20, 2010

       While the Obama Administration continues their so-called 
     ``Recovery Summer'' tour claiming the Democrats' stimulus 
     bill ``saved or created'' three millions jobs, the facts show 
     47 out of 50 States have lost jobs since stimulus passed. The 
     table below compares the number of jobs the Administration 
     currently claims its stimulus has somehow created in each 
     State (center column) with the actual change in jobs since 
     stimulus became law (right hand column), as documented by the 
     Department of Labor. It shows that only Alaska, Kentucky and 
     North Dakota, along with the District of Columbia, have shown 
     any real job growth since stimulus passed and even in those 
     States the official job creation has fallen far short of 
     Administration claims.
       ``Americans are asking where are the jobs, but all 
     Washington Democrats are showing them is more unemployment, 
     debt and higher deficits,'' said Ways and Means Ranking 
     Member Dave Camp (R-MI).

------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                      Administration
                                     claims of change   Actual change in
               State                 in jobs through   jobs through June
                                        June 2010             2010
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama...........................            +42,000            -45,500
Alaska............................             +7,000             +2,200
Arizona...........................            +64,000            -80,300
Arkansas..........................            +26,000            -12,600
California........................           +357,000           -520,200
Colorado..........................            +50,000            -84,600
Connecticut.......................            +38,000            -34,000
Delaware..........................             +9,000             -5,500
DC................................            +16,000             +7,800
Florida...........................           +167,000           -152,200
Georgia...........................            +91,000           -124,600
Hawaii............................            +13,000            -12,700
Idaho.............................            +15,000            -14,600
Illinois..........................           +140,000           -155,000
Indiana...........................            +68,000            -29,800
Iowa..............................            +34,000            -23,700
Kansas............................            +28,000            -34,200
Kentucky..........................            +41,000             +2,400
Louisiana.........................            +39,000            -17,300
Maine.............................            +14,000            -11,400
Maryland..........................            +53,000            -14,300
Massachusetts.....................            +79,000            -36,700
Michigan..........................           +102,000            -91,400
Minnesota.........................            +60,000            -47,900
Mississippi.......................            +26,000            -25,400
Missouri..........................            +59,000            -48,300
Montana...........................            +10,000             -3,100
Nebraska..........................            +17,000            -10,300
Nevada............................            +29,000            -64,300
New Hampshire.....................            +13,000               -100
New Jersey........................            +94,000            -68,300
New Mexico........................            +19,000            -30,900
New York..........................           +206,000           -115,400
North Carolina....................            +90,000            -49,700
North Dakota......................             +8,000             +5,100
Ohio..............................           +117,000           -131,500
Oklahoma..........................            +35,000            -33,500
Oregon............................            +41,000            -49,000
Pennsylvania......................           +130,000            -71,600
Rhode Island......................            +11,000            -15,200
South Carolina....................            +41,000            -15,100
South Dakota......................             +8,000             -4,100
Tennessee.........................            +60,000            -69,400
Texas.............................           +225,000            -57,700
Utah..............................            +27,000            -11,000
Vermont...........................             +7,000             -7,300
Virginia..........................            +73,000            -39,500
Washington........................            +67,000            -68,600
West Virginia.....................            +16,000            -10,200
Wisconsin.........................            +63,000            -82,000
Wyoming...........................             +6,000             -9,900
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sources: July 14, 2010, White House.
Council of Economic Advisors report and Ways and Means Republican Staff
  calculations based on Department of Labor data.


  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased at this time 
to yield 2 minutes to my good friend, the distinguished gentlewoman 
from Nevada (Ms. Berkley).
  Ms. BERKLEY. Thank you very much for yielding.
  Let me tell you something about the State of Nevada. We have the 
highest unemployment rate in the country--14\1/2\ percent unemployed--
our fellow citizens with no jobs to go to and no jobs to seek. We have 
the highest mortgage foreclosure rate in the country. Nevadans are 
suffering.
  It has taken far too long for this Congress to act. Unemployment 
benefits are not a handout. It's not welfare. It's giving a helping 
hand to our fellow citizens that need it the most, to get them where 
they are now--which is without a job--to where they're going to be when 
there is an economic recovery.
  The gentleman from northern Nevada had an amendment in the Rules 
Committee that said unobligated stimulus money should go to pay for 
this. How many times does he have to hear that there are no unobligated 
funds in the stimulus bill? For any Nevadan to condemn the stimulus 
bill is to ignore what's going on in the State of Nevada.
  Let me tell you what the stimulus bill did for us. It put $700 
billion into our education system. I'm not talking about only paying 
teachers and keeping them employed, I'm talking about the possibility 
of having to close schools. It put $500 billion into Medicaid so that 
poor children and poor adults aren't going to be out on the streets 
dying for lack of medical care. Our unemployment compensation trust 
fund was broke. Zero. Zippo. We were able to put money into that.
  And in addition to that, the construction projects that came directly 
from the stimulus package--not public but private contractors bidding 
on these projects and then hiring construction workers, the downtown 
transportation center, the park-and-ride in Centennial Hills, the 
Boulder Highway Transportation Center, and so many more came directly 
from this stimulus bill.
  In addition to that, we had a middle-income tax cut, we had $250 that 
went

[[Page H5932]]

to every Social Security recipient, $250 went to every disabled veteran 
in Nevada. We welcomed this money. We needed this money. It kept us 
afloat.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry).
  Mr. TERRY. Mr. Speaker, yes, I've talked to several of our unemployed 
back home. And boy, I tell you, I empathize with them. It's a tough 
position. I just talked to an unemployed truck driver. His benefits are 
running out, but yet the trucks that have been idled over the last 
couple of years are yet to be back onto the road because this is a 
jobless recovery. Well, it's a very minimal recovery at best. But they 
aren't creating the jobs.
  The public knows and we know that the stimulus hasn't worked. The 
business community feels that not only does the administration not 
understand business, but they are now attacking businesses, and the 
policies have created uncertainty where they won't create the jobs. 
That's the issue here. There's no jobs for them to go back to because 
of the policies that have been adopted in the last year and a half.
  We should be growing the economy and getting these people back to 
work. That's what they want to do.
  Now, again, I empathize. But the issue here is at a time when the 
majority is spending probably over $4 trillion by the time this 
calendar year is done--and we're already at deficit spending of over a 
trillion dollars by June--the people are saying, Stop the spending. 
Stop the deficit spending.
  And that's what the issue is here is the $34 billion that's not paid 
for that's going to go to the deficit and ultimately to our national 
debt, and that's what the people are telling us to stop--even the 
unemployed truck driver that I talked to.
  So, all we ask of the majority here, $34 billion, you're telling me 
out of--well, we don't have a budget--but out of $3.8 trillion you 
can't find $34 billion to offset and keep your promises of PAYGO?
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I would tell my friend where 
that trillion-dollar deficit came from is the $1 trillion combined in 
Afghanistan and Iraq that we spent that's off budget, never accounted 
for, borrowed and spent by the Republicans in the majority.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from 
Wisconsin, my good friend, the chairman of the Committee on 
Appropriations, David Obey.
  Mr. OBEY. I thank the gentleman for the time.
  Talk, talk, talk. Blah, blah, blah. Yap, yap, yap. The country is 
sick of it all. They are sick of it all. Thank God finally there will 
be a cease-fire for the moment on the yap-yapping and the talk-talking 
while the Congress actually takes some action to restore unemployment 
benefits for nearly 85,000 people in my State and over 2\1/2\ million 
Americans who are caught up in the partisan delay game that was being 
played every day by some of our friends in the other body.
  We're told, ``Oh, we can't afford this.'' We hear that from the same 
people who blew up the economy in the first place with two wars paid 
for with borrowed money, with two tax cuts primarily aimed at the 
highest income people in this country paid for with borrowed money, and 
with years of economic policies that allowed Wall Street banks to morph 
into casinos because the referee was taken off the field.
  And now they're crying crocodile tears at this late date about the 
cost of helping folks who are unemployed. And they want us to take 
actions in dealing with that that would further weaken the ability of 
the economy to grow.
  And then some of them even have the gall to challenge the work ethic 
of Americans who are drawing unemployment. And some of them are off-
the-wall enough to even believe that those folks would rather get a few 
hundred bucks a month rather than a steady paycheck. Well, if you 
believe that, I've got a lot of unemployed workers in Wisconsin I'd 
like to have you meet.
  If you want, if you must, by all means debate economic theory, debate 
your academic theories, debate anything you want. But for God's sake 
remember that in this debate the people who are being affected are 
flesh-and-blood human beings. They are families who need our help. And 
it would be nice if we could quit yap-yapping long enough to provide 
that help.
  Don't use the unemployed as cannon fodder in academic and political 
debates. For God's sake, remember there are simply people who need our 
help. Get it to them. We can have the phony political debates on 
another day.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I need to point out to my colleagues once more 
that when the Democrats took over the Congress in January of 2007, the 
deficit was about $200 billion. There was a wonderful situation under 
Mr. Clinton, they like to point out, but that was because Republicans 
were in control of Congress and were controlling spending.

                              {time}  1120

  When the Democrats took control of Congress, that's when things 
started going downhill for this country. It's when unemployment started 
going up and bad things happened.
  Let me say, Republicans have repeatedly called for cutting unspent 
stimulus spending to offset spending, but we're not alone.
  The majority leader, Mr. Hoyer, said on June 13 there's spending 
fatigue across the country and that, if we have dollars not yet 
expended in the Recovery Act, they should be redirected to pay for new 
spending like this.
  The chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Mr. Obey, hailed 
amendments to the supplemental appropriations bill made on July 1 that 
were paid for by repeatedly cutting unspent projects in the stimulus 
bill.
  In the other body, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Mr. 
Baucus, has suggested the same, pay for new spending by cutting 
stimulus.
  Mr. Speaker, I enter the sources for my comments in my remarks for 
the Record.
  Republicans have repeatedly called for cutting unspent stimulus 
spending to offset this spending. We are not alone. The Majority 
Leader, Mr. Hoyer, said on June 13 there is ``spending fatigue'' across 
the country and that ``if we have dollars not yet expended in the 
recovery act'' that they should be redirected to pay for new spending 
like this. The Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Mr. 
Obey, hailed amendments to the supplemental appropriations bill made on 
July 1 that were paid for by repeatedly cutting unspent projects in the 
stimulus law. In the other body, the Chairman of the Senate Finance 
Committee, Mr. Baucus, has suggested the same--pay for new spending by 
cutting stimulus.

             [From the Hill's On The Money, June 13, 2010]

       Hoyer: White House Should Look to Redirect Stimulus Money

                            (By Silla Brush)

       House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) wants the White 
     House to look at unspent money from the 2009 stimulus package 
     instead of asking Congress for a new fiscal package.
       President Barack Obama on Saturday night wrote to 
     congressional leaders urging them to pass legislation 
     extending tax cuts and add new spending to prevent ``hundreds 
     of thousands'' of teacher layoffs, among other cuts. Obama 
     said that without such measures the economy could ``slide 
     backwards.''
       Hoyer said on ABC's ``This Week'' on Sunday that there is 
     ``spending fatigue'' across the country and that he is 
     encouraging the administration to look at last year's $787 
     billion stimulus package to see if some money can be 
     redirected.
       ``I have asked the White House to look at the package we 
     already passed,'' Hoyer said. ``I personally believe if we 
     have dollars not yet expended in the recovery act we could 
     apply to this immediate need.''
       Centrist Democrats in recent weeks have been more vocal 
     about their concerns that new spending would lead to higher 
     deficits and debt.
       House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said: ``To 
     move without finding other offsets is irresponsible.''
                                  ____


          [From the Committee on Appropriations, July 1, 2010]

   House Consideration of the 2010 Supplemental Appropriations Act: 
         Amendments on Fully Offset Education and Other Funding

              (By Ellis Brachman and Jenilee Keefe Singer)

       Washington, D.C.--The House of Representatives passed two 
     amendments to H.R. 4899, the 2010 supplemental appropriations 
     bill for efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Haiti and pressing 
     domestic needs.
       The Senate bill provides a total of $45.5 billion in 
     discretionary funding for FY 2010, of

[[Page H5933]]

     which $37.12 billion is provided for our troops in Iraq and 
     Afghanistan. The bill also provides $5.1 billion for FEMA 
     disaster relief, $2.9 billion for Haiti, $162 million for the 
     Gulf Coast oil spill, and over $600 million for other 
     domestic needs in discretionary appropriations. Additionally, 
     the bill includes $13 billion in mandatory funding for 
     Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange as requested by the 
     President.
       The House amendments add $22.8 billion for important 
     domestic needs, including $10 billion for an Education Jobs 
     Fund to help save 140,000 education jobs for the next school 
     year, and funding for Pell Grants, summer youth jobs, the 
     Pigford and Cobell settlements, border security, innovative 
     technology energy loans, schools on military installations, 
     additional Gulf Coast oil spill funding, emergency food 
     assistance, a new soldier processing center at Fort Hood, and 
     program integrity investments that are proven to produce 1\1/
     2\ times their cost in savings.
       In order to hold the total amount to the President's 
     requested level over a ten-year period, the amendments 
     include a total of $23.5 billion in offsets: $11.7 billion in 
     rescissions from programs that no longer require the funding, 
     have sufficient funds on hand, or do not need the funding 
     this year or next; $4.7 billion in savings from changes to 
     mandatory programs; and $7.1 billion in increased revenues.
       In total, the amendments save the Federal Government $493 
     million over ten years compared to the President's request 
     for Supplemental funding.


             SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS IN THE HOUSE AMENDMENTS

       Education Jobs: $10 billion, fully offset, for an Education 
     Jobs Fund to provide additional emergency support to local 
     school districts to prevent impending layoffs. It is 
     estimated that this fund will help keep 140,000 school 
     employees on the job next year.
       Process: The fund will be administered by the Department of 
     Education. After reviewing State applications, the Department 
     will make formula allocations to States based on total 
     population and school age population. States will then 
     distribute the funds to school districts through their 
     respective funding formulas or based on each district's share 
     of Title I funds. In the case that a Governor does not submit 
     an approvable application for funds to the Department of 
     Education, the bill directs the Secretary to bypass the State 
     government and make awards directly to other entities within 
     the State.
       Requirements: The bill includes strict provisions to ensure 
     that States use these funds only for preservation of jobs 
     serving elementary and secondary education, and not to 
     supplant State spending on education.
       Amounts from the Education Jobs Fund may not be used for 
     purposes such as equipment, utilities, renovation, or 
     transportation.
       The bill prohibits States from using any of these funds to 
     add to ``Rainy-Day Funds'' or to pay off State debt.
       In order to receive an Education Jobs Fund grant, each 
     State must provide assurance that State spending for both K-
     12 and higher education (measured separately) in fiscal year 
     2011 will be at or above either:
       1. the fiscal year 2009 level (in aggregate or per pupil);
       2. the same percentage share of the total State budget as 
     in fiscal year 2010, or;
       3. for states demonstrating especially dire fiscal 
     conditions, the 2006 fiscal year aggregate dollar level or 
     percentage share.
       NOTE: More stringent rules apply to the State of Texas.
       Pell Grants: $4.95 billion, fully offset, to address the 
     current year shortfall in the Pell Grant Program that was 
     unanticipated last year. Over 8 million students received 
     Pell grants this year.
       Border Security: $701 million to strengthen enforcement on 
     the southern border, including:
       $208.4 million for 1,200 additional Border Patrol agents 
     deployed between the ports of entry along the Southwest 
     Border.
       $136 million to maintain current Customs and Border 
     Protection (CBP) officer staffing levels and add 500 
     additional officers at ports of entry along the Southwest 
     Border.
       $35.5 million for improved tactical communications on the 
     Southwest Border, three permanent Border Patrol forward 
     operating bases, and a surge of workforce integrity 
     investigations designed to prevent corruption among CBP 
     officers and agents.
       $50 million for Operation Stonegarden grants to support 
     local law enforcement activities on the border.
       $32 million to procure two additional CBP unmanned aircraft 
     systems.
       $30 million for Immigration and Customs Enforcement 
     activities directed at reducing the threat of narcotics 
     smuggling and associated violence.
       $201 million for Justice Department programs, as requested.
       Gulf Oil Spill: $304 million for the Gulf Coast oil spill. 
     The Senate bill carried $162 million, including: $83 million 
     for unemployment assistance related to the oil spill and an 
     oil spill relief employment program; $7 million for NOAA oil 
     spill response activities, including scientific 
     investigations and sampling; $14 million to respond to 
     economic impacts on fishermen; $10 million for Justice legal 
     activities; $5 million for economic recovery planning; and 
     $31 million for the Department of the Interior to conduct 
     additional inspections and enforcement and to strengthen 
     oversight and regulation and for the EPA to conduct a long-
     term risk study. The House amendment adds $12 million for the 
     newly created Presidential Commission investigating the 
     spill; and $130 million for an unemployment benefits program 
     for the self-employed (i.e., fisherman) and for training and 
     employment services.
       Emergency Food Assistance: $50 million for The Emergency 
     Food Assistance Program for food purchases to distribute 
     through local emergency food providers.
       Schools on DoD Installations: $163 million to improve the 
     capacity and condition of elementary and secondary schools 
     located on DoD installations.
       Energy Loans: $180 million to allow $18 billion in 
     innovative technology energy loans, split evenly between 
     nuclear and renewable energy programs.
       Fort Hood Soldier Processing Center: $16.5 million for the 
     replacement of the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at 
     Fort Hood, Texas, the site of the 2009 shooting.
       Program Integrity Funding: $538 million to strengthen 
     waste, fraud and abuse prevention and enforcement for 
     Medicare, Medicaid and the IRS. Research shows that for every 
     $1.00 invested into identifying and eliminating waste, fraud 
     and abuse in government spending, we get $1.50 back.
       Cobell and Pigford Settlements: $4.6 billion to pay for 
     settlement of both the Cobell and Pigford class action 
     lawsuits. The Cobell settlement concerns the government's 
     management and accounting for over 300,000 American Indians' 
     trust accounts, and the Pigford settlement ends a decades old 
     discrimination lawsuit brought by black farmers against USDA.
       Summer Jobs: $1 billion to allow local Workforce Investment 
     Boards to expand successful summer jobs programs that were 
     funded in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The 
     funds would support over 350,000 jobs for youth ages 14 to 24 
     through summer employment programs. This age group has some 
     of the highest unemployment levels--25% unemployment for 
     those aged 16 to 19.
       Modifications to the Surface Transportation Extension Act 
     of 2010: Makes two changes to Title IV, the ``Surface 
     Transportation Extension Act of 2010,'' of the Hiring 
     Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act. First, the 
     amendment would distribute the Projects of National and 
     Regional Significance (PNRS) and National Corridor 
     Infrastructure Improvement (National Corridor) program 
     funding so that each State receives a share equal to the 
     greater of either (1) the amount of PNRS and National 
     Corridor program funding that the State received under the 
     HIRE Act or (2) the amount of PNRS and National Corridor 
     funding that the State receives under this Act. The provision 
     authorizes such sums as may be necessary from the Highway 
     Trust Fund to provide these amounts. Second, the amendment 
     would distribute ``additional'' highway formula funds (which 
     the bill makes available in lieu of additional 
     Congressionally-designated projects) among all of the highway 
     formula programs rather than among just six formula programs.


                      UNDERLYING SENATE PROVISIONS

       FEMA Disaster Relief: $5.1 billion for the FEMA Disaster 
     Relief Fund, as requested by the President and included in 
     the Senate bill. The request is necessary to pay for known 
     costs for past disasters, such as Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, 
     Ike, and Gustav, the Midwest floods of 2008, and the 
     California wildfires and for needs that emerge from new 
     disasters.
       Veterans: $13.377 billion in mandatory appropriations in 
     2010, as included in the Senate bill, for the payment of 
     benefits to Vietnam veterans and their survivors for exposure 
     to Agent Orange, which has been linked with Parkinson's 
     disease, ischemic heart disease, and hairy cell/B cell 
     leukemia. An estimated 86,069 people will be eligible to 
     receive retroactive payments and 67,259 people will be 
     eligible to receive new benefits.
       Haiti: $2.93 billion provided in the Senate bill for Haiti, 
     $130 million above the request.
       Farm Loans: $31.5 million, supporting $950 million in farm 
     loans, included in the Senate bill for the Farm Service 
     Agency (FSA) to provide direct loans to family farmers who 
     may not qualify for agricultural credit through other 
     commercial institutions in the tight credit market. The 
     funding provided in the FY 2010 appropriation bill was 
     estimated to meet demand at the time the bill was passed, but 
     demand for the farm ownership and operating loan programs 
     continues to rise above historical levels due to the lack of 
     availability of conventional credit.
       Disaster Assistance: $100 million in Community Development 
     Block Grant (CDBG) funding included in the Senate bill to 
     help local communities devastated by flooding this year.
       Mine Safety: $22 million included in the Senate bill to 
     reverse the growing backlog of mine safety enforcement cases 
     while ensuring that the Mine Safety and Health Administration 
     (MSHA) can complete 100% of its mandated mine inspections.
       Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission: $2 million included in 
     the Senate bill to allow the Commission to investigate the 
     causes of the recent financial crisis. The Commission is 
     tasked with submitting its report by December, 2010.
       Capitol Police: $13 million included in the Senate bill for 
     the ongoing acquisition and installation of a modern digital 
     radio system because of known security threats.

[[Page H5934]]

       Port of Guam: $50 million, as requested, included in the 
     Senate bill to improve and provide greater access to port 
     facilities.
       Highway Safety: $15 million included in the Senate bill for 
     additional studies of sudden acceleration and to administer 
     fuel economy standards.
       Rural Housing Loans: the Senate bill provides authority to 
     continue making loans, and protects low-income borrowers from 
     the loan fee increase.
       Army Corps of Engineers: $178 million included in the 
     Senate bill to respond to natural disasters.
       Mississippi River and Tributaries: $18.6 million included 
     in the Senate bill to respond to disasters.
       Emergency Drought Relief: $10 million included in the 
     Senate bill to respond to droughts in the West.
       Flood Control and Coastal Emergencies: $20 million provided 
     in the Senate bill for the Army Corps.
       Fisheries Disasters: $26 million provided in the Senate 
     bill and offset by a NOAA rescission.
       Economic Development Administration: $49 million provided 
     in the Senate bill.
       Emergency Forest Restoration: $18 million provided in the 
     Senate bill.
       Coast Guard: $16 million provided in the Senate bill for 
     aircraft replacement.


                                OFFSETS

       The bill includes $11.7 billion in rescissions from 
     programs that no longer require the funding, have sufficient 
     funds on hand, or do not need the funding this year or next. 
     It also includes $4.7 billion in savings from changes in 
     mandatory programs. Rescissions include:
       $69.9 million in funds appropriated before 2008 to the 
     Department of Agriculture.
       $122 million in funding provided to the Department of 
     Agriculture for emergencies that have been completed.
       $487 million in Recovery Act and other funding provided to 
     the Department of Agriculture for WIC.
       $27.3 million in emergency funding for the Farm Service 
     Agency provided as early as 2004 that are no longer needed.
       $602 million in Recovery Act funding provided to the 
     Departments of Agriculture and Commerce for broadband grants.
       $112 million in funding provided in the Recovery Act for 
     digital television.
       $15 million in funding provided in the Recovery Act for 
     NIST construction.
       $2 billion in funding appropriated as early as 2006 to the 
     Defense Department.
       $500 million in funds appropriated to the Department of 
     Defense for military construction projects that achieved bid 
     savings.
       $262 million in Recovery Act funding provided to the 
     Department of Defense.
       $177 million in funding appropriated to the Defense 
     Department for HMMWVs they no longer plan to purchase.
       $116 million appropriated for the Non-Line of Sight Launch 
     System (NLOS-LS) which the Army has terminated.
       $100 million appropriated to the Army for Operations and 
     Maintenance, because of slow execution of some programs 
     within the account
       $87 million appropriated for SINCGARS radios and other Army 
     procurement programs that have not been spent as quickly as 
     planned.
       $237 million in funds appropriated for Army Corps of 
     Engineers projects now terminated or completed, or for 
     projects that have not utilized allocated funding for several 
     years.
       $800 million in funding provided to the Department of 
     Education for new discretionary grant awards.
       $329 million in funding appropriated as early as 2009 to 
     the Department of Energy, (including out-year savings).
       $18 million in funding appropriated as early as 2005 to the 
     Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
       $100 million in funding appropriated to the General 
     Services Administration.
       $6 million in funds appropriated in 1995 to the Department 
     of Health and Human Services.
       $2 billion in funding appropriated as early as 2004 to the 
     Department of Health and Human Services for pandemic flu and 
     procurement of new biological countermeasures.
       $200 million in funding for DHS border efforts currently 
     frozen due to secretarial review.
       $36 million in funds appropriated in 2006 to FEMA.
       $7 million in funds appropriated in 2006 to the Coast 
     Guard.
       $53.8 million in funds appropriated as early as 2007 for 
     research in DHS' Domestic Nuclear Detection office.
       $6.6 million in funds appropriated in 2007 to the 
     Transportation Security Administration.
       $80 million in Recovery Act funding appropriated to the 
     Department of Interior, EPA, and Forest Service.
       $33 million in funding provided in 1997 and 2004 to the 
     National Park Service and the Fish & Wildlife Service.
       $2.7 million in funds appropriated in 2010 to the 
     Judiciary.
       $11 million in funds appropriated in 1989 to the Federal 
     Highway Administration.
       $8 million in funds appropriated in 2004 and 2006 to the 
     Federal Aviation Administration.
       $112 million in funds appropriated in 2008 for Hurricanes 
     Ike and Gustav and Midwest Floods.
       $400 million in funds appropriated in 2008 for CDBG for 
     Hurricane Katrina.
       $2.2 billion in highway contract authority.
       $44 million in unused Recovery Act funding from the 
     Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Program (aka Cash for 
     Clunkers).
       $40 million in Recovery Act funding appropriated to the 
     State Department.
       $150 million in funding appropriated for the Millennium 
     Challenge Corporation.
       $70 million in funding appropriated to the Department of 
     State and USAID for the Civilian Stabilization Initiative.
       $6 million in Recovery Act funding provided to the 
     Department of Veterans Affairs for which the purpose has been 
     completed.
       $5 million in funding appropriated to the Architect of the 
     Capitol.


                            Other Provisions

       Iran Sanctions: The House amendment prohibits funding from 
     being provided for any new contract unless the contractor has 
     certified that it, and any entities it controls, does not 
     engage in activity that could be sanctioned under section 5 
     of the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996.
       No Fly List: The Senate bill requires the Transportation 
     Security Administration (TSA) to require commercial foreign 
     air carriers to check the list of individuals TSA has 
     prohibited from flying no later than 30 minutes after the 
     list has been updated.
       High-Value Detainee Interrogations: The Senate bill 
     requires the FBI to submit the High-Value Detainee 
     Interrogation procedures, and any updates to those 
     procedures, to the Congress within 30 days.
       Defense Jobs Estimates: The House amendment requires an 
     assessment of the number of jobs and costs associated with 
     new major defense acquisitions planned for 2011.
       Preserving Access to Affordable Generic Drugs: The House 
     amendment includes a provision to strengthen the Federal 
     Trade Commission's ability to restrict lucrative ``pay for 
     delay'' payments by brand-name drug manufacturers to their 
     generic competitors to delay the manufacture and marketing of 
     more affordable generic drugs to consumers. In 2009, an FTC 
     study found that a ban on these lucrative sweetheart drug 
     industry deals would save American consumers $35 billion over 
     10 years. CBO estimates that with the provision in this bill, 
     the federal government will save more than $2.4 billion over 
     10 years in lower drug costs for Medicare, Medicaid, military 
     and veterans' health programs.
       Medicaid AMP Computation: The House amendment includes a 
     provision to clarify the calculation of the ``Average 
     Manufacturer Price'' (AMP), which determines the amount of 
     manufacturer rebates to the federal government for outpatient 
     drugs purchased by the Medicaid program. This technical 
     correction to the health care reform bill affects certain 
     injectable, infusible, and inhalation drugs. It will save the 
     American taxpayers $2.1 billion over 10 years.
       Public Safety Collective Bargaining: The House amendment 
     guarantees collective bargaining rights for the nation's 
     first responders employed by States and localities. Under the 
     language, states would administer and enforce their own labor 
     laws, while the Federal Labor Relations Authority would step 
     in only where such laws do not exist or do not meet minimum 
     standards. The language prohibits public safety officers from 
     engaging in a lockout, sickout, work slowdown, strike, or any 
     other organized job action that will disrupt the delivery of 
     emergency services.
       FHA Loan Authority: The House amendment increases the loan 
     commitment authority for the Federal Housing Administration 
     (FHA) to insure mortgages for multi-family housing, hospitals 
     and health care facilities. This increase in authority is 
     necessary in order to avoid a disruption or suspension in the 
     financing of these facilities.
       GRAT Minimum Term: Includes the President's 2011 Budget 
     proposal to require a minimum 10-year term and other changes 
     to Grantor retained annuity trusts (``GRATs''). GRATs allow 
     taxpayers to structure a transfer of assets to avoid gift 
     taxes. As a result, taxpayer would be required to take on 
     greater risk in order to take advantage of the gift tax 
     benefits of using a GRAT. This provision is estimated to 
     raise $5.297 billion over 10 years.
       Crude Tall Oil: Limits eligibility for the cellulosic 
     biofuel tax credit, which was created to encourage the 
     development of new production capacity for biofuels that are 
     not derived from food sources, to fuels that are not highly 
     corrosive (i.e., fuels that could be used in a car engine or 
     in a home heating application). The change would prevent 
     taxpayers from claiming the credit for production of 
     processed fuels that are highly corrosive, such as crude tall 
     oil (a waste by-product of the paper manufacturing process). 
     This proposal is estimated to raise $1.849 billion over 10 
     years.
                                  ____


                     [From the Hill's On The Money]

       House Democrats To Use Unspent Stimulus Money for Teachers

                          (By Walter Alarkon)

       House Democrats will try to use money from their $862 
     billion stimulus to help pay for education spending in a 
     supplemental appropriations bill.
       The package crafted by House Appropriations Committee 
     Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) would include $10 billion to 
     help states and local governments avoid teacher layoffs, $5 
     billion for Pell Grant funding and $701 million to increase 
     security at the Mexican border.
       House leaders will try this week to attach the measure as 
     an amendment to a spending

[[Page H5935]]

     bill already passed by the Senate that provides $37 blllion 
     for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
       Obey's $11.7 billion domestic spending package wouldn't add 
     to the $13 trillion debt. It would be offset by redirecting 
     money in the stimulus and with other spending cuts.
       About $1.6 billion in stimulus money that would have gone 
     to the departments of State, Defense, Interior, Veterans 
     Affairs, Agriculture and Commerce and for the ``Cash for 
     Clunkers automobile trade-in program will be used as an 
     offset in the supplemental bill.
       Obey's decision to offset the spending with stimulus funds 
     is aimed at shoring up support for the supplemental spending 
     bill. Both Republicans and centrist Democrats have opposed 
     more deficit spending to help boost the economy.

  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock).
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. I thank the gentlelady for yielding.
  The jobless need jobs. Why is it that the majority doesn't understand 
that? We do not help the unemployed by making more of them.
  The gentleman from Florida asked an important question: What would 
have happened without all of the trillions of dollars of stimulus 
spending? It's becoming increasingly clear what would have happened: a 
normal V-shaped recovery.
  In every past economic recession, save one, the greater the economic 
contraction, the more dramatic has been the following recovery. That 
one exception was the recession of 1929 when Keynesian economics had 
come into vogue. Herbert Hoover responded to that recession by enacting 
the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act that was a tax on tens of thousands of 
imported products. He increased Federal spending 60 percent in 4 years. 
He increased the Federal income tax rate from 25 to 63 percent. These 
were policies that were extended and expanded under Franklin Roosevelt, 
and as Roosevelt's own Treasury Secretary admitted in 1939, it did not 
work.
  The gentleman's history is simply wrong. The Depression ended and the 
great postwar economic boom began in 1946. You will find that, in 1946, 
Democrat Harry Truman cut Federal spending dramatically. In 1946, he 
cut the Federal budget from $80 billion down to $35 billion. He fired 
10 million Federal employees. It was called demobilization, and the 
result was the entire postwar economic expansion.
  Mr. Speaker, it's said that those who don't learn from history are 
bound to repeat it. I fear that the majority party is repeating a 
failed history of economic contraction at just a time when we need pro-
growth policies.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 2 
minutes to my colleague and fellow Floridian, the distinguished 
gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I am appalled, and my 
constituents are appalled, at the Republicans' disrespect and 
coldheartedness when it comes to extending unemployment benefits for 
out-of-work Americans. Some Republican Members of Congress and 
candidates in their party have suggested that unemployment insurance 
makes Americans too lazy to work. One Republican Member of the House 
even asked, ``Is the government now creating hobos?''
  Maybe my Republican colleagues don't understand how unemployment 
compensation works. You only qualify for unemployment if you were 
employed. Far from being a handout to someone who doesn't want to work, 
unemployment benefits are specifically designed for people who want to 
work but who can't currently find work.
  The Bush recession drove our economy off a cliff creating the worst 
economic conditions since the Great Depression. As a result, millions 
of Americans lost their jobs. Nearly 800,000 Americans lost their jobs 
in the last month of the Bush administration alone. Those are the 
facts.
  Now we are beginning to recover from this near economic collapse. 
We've seen steady economic growth, including six straight months of 
private sector job growth, but there are still five unemployed 
Americans looking for work for every one job opening available.
  The continued Republican opposition to helping out-of-work Americans 
is preposterous. It flies in the face of history. Since 1959, Congress 
has never let extended unemployment benefits expire when unemployment 
is over 7.2 percent.
  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle claim that we can't 
afford to help unemployed Americans, but where were they when they ran 
up the deficit by passing tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent of 
Americans? Where were they when, year after year, President Bush's 
budget did not include the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?
  Mr. Speaker, analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget 
Office finds that extending unemployment benefits is one of the most 
cost-effective and fast-acting ways to stimulate the economy. Moreover, 
economists agree that extending these benefits will create jobs and 
decrease the chances of slipping into a double-dip recession. So not 
only is it the right thing to do to help people who are temporarily out 
of work, it is also one of the best ways to stimulate local economies, 
from the very smallest towns to the very biggest cities.
  Let's do the right thing. Let's pass extended unemployment benefits.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  You know, I've often said that being here in Washington is like being 
Alice in Wonderland. I didn't know that there are a lot of other people 
who feel the same way.
  I did want to ask my colleague from Massachusetts who made the 
contention that if we get $1.90 back for every dollar we spend, we 
don't understand why the Democrats are stopping at spending $34 billion 
for these unemployment benefits. But I do want to come back to the 
issue of being Alice in Wonderland.
  And recently, there have been several articles that have been 
published that have talked about this being Alice in Wonderland and the 
tea party, and I would like to quote from one of those articles from 
The Washington Times this Monday.
  ``A recent CBS Poll reports that 74 percent of the population thinks 
the nearly $1 trillion stimulus package either hurt or had no impact on 
the economy. Simply put, that means three-fourths of the American 
people think the stimulus package was a $1 trillion waste of money. The 
same poll reports that 2.5 times as many people think the health care 
reform bill signed into law by Democrats will hurt them (33 percent) 
rather than help them (13 percent).''
  It goes on to say, ``Many Americans are seized with fear as what 
might normally be a benign, lame-duck session of Congress looms in 
November.''
  Another quote: ``In Lewis Carroll's story, Alice finds herself in a 
bizarre, nightmarish world where the basic laws of logic no longer 
apply and familiar beings take on strange, unreasoning personas. More 
and more, many Americans view our progressive leaders on Capitol Hill 
and at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as the insane hosts of an ongoing 
Washington-style mad tea party.''
  I think that's what many Americans feel. I agree with them. That is 
what we are hearing when we go home to our districts and talk to the 
people there. They're seeing Washington as Wonderland and that there is 
a mad tea party going on.
  I would like to also point out that there's another article which 
came out in Bloomberg Opinion which talks about the discrepancy in the 
job numbers that have come out.
  Mr. Speaker, we know Americans are hurting. We know there's a lot of 
unemployment and we're sympathetic, but this is not the right way to 
go.

               [From the Washington Times, July 19, 2010]

                       A Tale of Two Tea Parties

                          (By Doug Mainwaring)

       Two Tea Parties grip the nation in two very different ways. 
     The first is the Tea Party movement, which traces its origins 
     to a watershed historic event as its members attempt to bring 
     sanity and sustainability back to government. The second 
     finds its origins in literature--Lewis Carroll's ``The 
     Adventures of Alice in Wonderland''--and is descriptive of 
     the surreal governance of the progressives in the White House 
     and Congress as they continue their push toward governmental 
     insanity and unsustainability. Like matter and antimatter, 
     positive and negative charges, they are set in polar 
     opposition to each other.
       In Lewis Carroll's story, Alice finds herself in a bizarre, 
     nightmarish world where the basic laws of logic no longer 
     apply and familiar beings take on strange, unreasoning 
     personas. More and more, many Americans

[[Page H5936]]

     view our progressive leaders on Capitol Hill and at 1600 
     Pennsylvania Ave. as the insane hosts of an ongoing 
     Washington-style mad tea party. Those leaders act not just 
     counterintuitively, they act outside the bounds of logic, 
     reason and historic precedent that normally tether this 
     country to safety. They behave as political elites who think 
     they know better than the American public what's best. They 
     are ludicrously out of touch.
       The madness of this Washington tea party is displayed in 
     myriad ways, but most profoundly in the nearly limitless 
     demonstrations of stunning disconnect between the political 
     elites and the American people. Congressional approval hovers 
     around 20 percent, while disapproval is around 70 percent. 
     The president's approval rating has been in decline for a 
     long time, now at about 45 percent and sinking. Despite the 
     fact that a majority in this country disapprove of the work 
     being done by the political class, the political elites 
     continue to pass gigantic, overreaching, outrageously 
     expensive legislation.
       A Rasmussen survey released on Friday finds that 59 percent 
     of likely voters are embarrassed by the nation's political 
     class and its behavior while just 23 percent are not. A 
     stunning 64 percent see the political class as a bigger 
     threat to our nation than legislation such as Arizona's new 
     immigration law. Just 20 percent say the opposite. In 
     general, the nation sees the political class as both an 
     embarrassment and, in some ways, a threat by about a 3-1 
     margin.
       From the point of view of the ruling political class, it 
     has racked up tremendous achievements: the stimulus package, 
     health care reform, education reform, Wall Street reform and 
     so on. While the elites lift their champagne glasses to toast 
     themselves, outside the Beltway, no one is popping corks.
       Most of the country looks on with jaws dropped, wondering: 
     What are you folks on Capitol Hill thinking? Twenty-four-
     hundred pages of unintelligible health care reform and 
     another 2,300 pages of unintelligible financial reform signed 
     into law. Stacked together, they create a legislative Tower 
     of Babel. How dare you pass this massive legislation while 
     you lack the confidence of the American people by a 7-2 
     margin?
       Undaunted, their mad tea party continues.
       A recent CBS Poll reports that 74 percent of the population 
     thinks the nearly $1 trillion stimulus package either hurt or 
     had no impact on the economy. Simply put, that means three-
     fourths of the American people think the stimulus package was 
     a $1 trillion waste of money. The same poll reports that 2.5 
     times as many people think the health care reform bill signed 
     into law by Democrats will hurt them (33 percent) rather than 
     help them (13 percent).
       Many Americans are seized with fear as what might normally 
     be a benign, lame-duck session of Congress looms in November. 
     Will this be used as a window of opportunity for progressives 
     to pass more unwanted legislation? ``Cap and trade''? Card 
     check? This could be their intention.
       Our progressive leaders don't get it, and what's more, they 
     don't care. They don't understand how starkly different, how 
     irrational and just how unhinged they appear to folks outside 
     the Beltway. While Lewis Carroll's mad tea party is literary 
     fantasy, sadly, the progressives' mad tea party in Washington 
     is very real.
       Robert Weissberg offered his view in the American Thinker 
     on April 29: ``I finally realized that the Obama 
     administration and its congressional collaborators almost 
     resemble a foreign occupying force, a coterie of politically 
     and culturally non-indigenous leaders whose rule contravenes 
     local values rooted in our national tradition. It is as if 
     the United States has been occupied by a foreign power, and 
     this transcends policy objections.''
       Dorothy Rabinowitz, writing in the Wall Street Journal a 
     few weeks later on June 9, shares a similar sentiment: ``A 
     great part of America now understands that this president's 
     sense of identification lies elsewhere and is in profound 
     ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like 
     the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by 
     instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is 
     the alien in the White House. . . .''
       Interestingly, the progressives' mad tea party in 
     Washington is what has given rise to the august Tea Party 
     movement. Washington leadership has abandoned the venerable, 
     common-sense, salt-of-the-earth center and right of our 
     nation. The movement has emerged to fill the gaping void in 
     center-right leadership to stem the tide of this Washington 
     madness. Republican leaders have been either clueless or 
     unwilling to lead bravely and skillfully. When Republicans 
     controlled both houses of Congress, they also spent 
     profligately. With such a huge vacuum of leadership in 
     Washington, the Tea Party movement has burst forth to lead 
     the way.
       The people at this country's admirable, sustaining center 
     have been ignored, trampled and tyrannized for too long. They 
     have been marginalized through political correctness and the 
     constant motion of the dividing line between progressivism 
     and conservatism far to the left. We now live in an upside-
     down, Alice-in-Wonderland, house-of-mirrors world where the 
     most basic of mainstream American sensibilities are 
     considered to be radical right-wing thought. This has led 
     Americans from sea to shining sea to announce: Enough is 
     enough.
       Tea Partiers seek to end the madness in Washington and 
     establish fiscal sanity and sound, reasonable, 
     constitutionally limited government.
                                  ____


              [From the Bloomberg Opinion, July 18, 2010]

             Obama Omits Jobs Killed or Thwarted From Tally

                           (By Caroline Baum)

       Can you believe they're still touting that silly metric?
       When I heard last week that the White House would be 
     announcing the number of ``jobs created or saved'' as a 
     result of the 2009 American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, my 
     first reaction was embarrassment.
       Imagine how Christina Romer must feel. The chairman of the 
     President's Council of Economic Advisors was dressed in a 
     cheery, salmon-colored jacket, a complement to the upbeat 
     news she had to deliver on July 14. The $787 billion stimulus 
     enacted in February 2009, which subsequently grew to $862 
     billion, increased gross domestic product by 2.7 percent to 
     3.4 percent relative to where it would have been, and added 
     anywhere from 2.5 million to 3.6 million jobs compared with 
     an ex-stimulus baseline.
       ``By this estimate, the Recovery Act has met the 
     president's goal of saving or creating 3.5 million jobs--two 
     quarters earlier than anticipated,'' Romer said with a 
     straight face. (More than 2.5 million non-farm jobs have been 
     lost since ARRA was enacted in February 2009, all of them in 
     the private sector, according to the Bureau of Labor 
     Statistics.)
       How does the CEA arrive at these numbers? It uses two 
     methods, Romer said. The first is a standard macroeconomic 
     forecasting model that estimates the multiplier effect of 
     fiscal policy. (The government's spending is someone else's 
     income.) The second method is statistical, using previous 
     relationships between GDP and employment to project future 
     behavior.


                           model imperfection

       These numbers might just as well have been pulled out of a 
     hat. Recall that it was the same model and method the 
     administration used in January 2009 to predict an 
     unemployment rate of 7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010 
     with the enactment of the fiscal stimulus and 8.8 percent 
     without. The unemployment rate now stands at 9.5 percent.
       This same model convinced policy makers that the subprime 
     crisis was contained, encouraged the rating companies to slap 
     AAA ratings on collateralized garbage, and led banks to 
     believe they had adequately managed their risks and reserved 
     for potential losses.
       Econometric models rely on the assumption that $1 of 
     government spending generates more than $1 of GDP, the so-
     called multiplier effect. There is no allowance for the 
     negative multiplier on the other side.
       Sure the government can spend money and generate GDP growth 
     in the short run: Government spending is a component of GDP!
       What it giveth it taketh away from the private sector via 
     taxation or borrowing. Every dollar the government spends is 
     a dollar the private sector doesn't spend, an investment it 
     doesn't make, a job it doesn't create. This is what is 
     unseen, as Frederic Bastiat explained in an 1850 essay.


                          hiring disincentives

       ``If the administration wants to take credit for `jobs 
     created or saved,' it should also accept responsibility for 
     `jobs destroyed or prevented,''' said Bill Dunkelberg, chief 
     economist at the National Federation of Independent Business.
       Ignoring the flaws in the stimulus for the moment, Congress 
     raised the hurdle for hiring entry-level workers when it 
     refused to delay the third step in a three-stage minimum wage 
     increase last year. And the Department of Labor cracked down 
     on unpaid internships, outlining six criteria that businesses 
     had to satisfy in order to hire someone willing and able to 
     work for nothing to get the experience.
       For example, the employer must derive ``no immediate 
     advantage from the activities of the trainees, and on 
     occasion the employer's operations may actually be impeded.''
       You can't make this stuff up.


                         recession's advantage

       At the White House briefing last week, Romer touted the 
     leveraging of public investment with private funds, with $1 
     of Recovery Act funds partnering with $3 of outside spending. 
     Romer said this public spending ``saved or created 800,000 
     jobs'' in the second quarter alone.
       Once again, what would have happened in the absence of the 
     government's targeted intervention?
       According to a June 2009 study by the Kauffman Foundation 
     in Kansas City, Missouri, well over half of the companies on 
     the Fortune 500 list, and almost half of the fastest growing 
     companies in America, were started during a recession or bear 
     market. Dunkelberg calls this phenomenon ``negative push 
     starts.'' People might not be willing to quit their jobs, but 
     if they get laid off during a recession and were thinking 
     about starting a business, they might seize the day, he said.
       ``When people ask me when the best time to start a company 
     is, I tell them the day before the recession ends,'' 
     Dunkelberg said. ``They can do it on the cheap, and the next 
     day you get cash flow.''


                              model that!

       What's more, firms less than five years old are responsible 
     for all of the net new jobs created in the U.S., the Kauffman 
     study found. Job creation by start-ups is more stable, less 
     sensitive to the business cycle.

[[Page H5937]]

       So, if the goal is to create more jobs, and start-ups are 
     the ones that create them, why is the Obama administration 
     partnering up with existing firms?
       ``Job-creation policies aimed at luring larger, established 
     employers will inevitably fail,'' said Tim Kane, Kauffman 
     Foundation senior fellow in research and policy and author of 
     a follow-up study released this month.
       Not to worry. The White House has a model that turns 
     failure into success.

  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of 
my time.
  A little while ago, George Bush said this. Several months after 
taking office, he learned that his budgets had already erased the 
previous administration's huge surplus that was paying off our 
country's debt at a rapid rate and had instead forced the country to 
start borrowing heavily again. Bush said, The huge deficit was 
incredibly positive news because it will create a fiscal straitjacket 
for Congress.

                              {time}  1130

  That's right, massive deficits were incredibly positive news.
  Mr. Speaker, I got a little tired of hearing our colleagues saying 
what the Democrats haven't done. Let me tell you what we have done.
  We have done the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. We have done 
the Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act. We have done 
health insurance reform, Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibilities Act. 
The Cash for Clunkers Program alone spurred the sale of 700,000 
vehicles.
  We have done the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act that 
helped create 300,000 jobs. When they talk in terms of the stimulus, 
the teachers, the police officers and the firefighters, when you ask 
them whether or not their jobs were saved, I guarantee you they will 
give you an answer.
  We did Wall Street reform passed by the House, American Worker, 
State, and Business Relief Act passed by the House and Senate, Small 
Business and Infrastructure Jobs Tax Act passed by the House. For those 
on the other side who argue that there haven't been any tax cuts, there 
have been tax cuts, but those tax cuts were for middle class Americans, 
93 percent of whom received the tax cut. We have done the Disaster 
Relief and Summer Jobs Act passed by the House, and it died over there 
in the Senate, and that's regrettable and foolish.
  We have done Jobs for Main Street Act, passed by the House. What's 
next? Small business lending, clean energy jobs and the COMPETES Act. I 
can assure you, we have done a lot and have a lot more to do and many 
of the things that I just spoke of create jobs.
  My colleagues see this legislation as a handout or a luxury, but to 
the millions who are depending on us to act, the extension of 
unemployment benefits will make the difference between whether they can 
put food on the table, pay their rent, and just get by.
  Years of bad economic and fiscal policies have brought us to our 
present situation, and there is no switch we can throw to provide an 
instant fix. In my home State of Florida, 147,000 individuals will run 
out of unemployment benefits.
  I haven't met these people, but I read about their plight, people 
like Joan McCammon of Kissimmee, a 50-year-old former administrative 
assistant who has been out of work for over a year. Though she and her 
husband tried to be prepared without this assistance, they will have to 
dip into their retirement savings just to make ends meet.
  She is not much different from Pandora Evans of Fort Pierce in my 
congressional district who has been unemployed for almost 2 years after 
losing her job at a service station. Her benefits have run out and her 
bills piled up to the point she may soon be homeless.
  And there is Joe Becker of Jupiter, Florida, who has applied for 
nearly 400 jobs, has put himself through additional training and is 
still unable to find work.
  These are only three of the 3.2 million Americans who stand to lose 
unemployment compensation if we do not act positively. This is not mere 
charity for them.
  I urge my colleagues to pass this much-needed extension and urge them 
to support this rule. I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question 
and on the rule.
  I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question 
on the resolution.
  The previous question was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, this 15-minute vote on adoption of 
House Resolution 1550 will be followed by a 5-minute vote on suspending 
the rules and passing H.R. 1469, as amended, on which the yeas and nays 
were ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 237, 
nays 180, not voting 15, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 461]

                               YEAS--237

     Ackerman
     Altmire
     Andrews
     Arcuri
     Baca
     Baldwin
     Barrow
     Bean
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Boccieri
     Boren
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brady (PA)
     Braley (IA)
     Brown, Corrine
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Cardoza
     Carnahan
     Carney
     Carson (IN)
     Castor (FL)
     Chandler
     Childers
     Chu
     Clarke
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Cohen
     Connolly (VA)
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costa
     Costello
     Courtney
     Critz
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Dahlkemper
     Davis (AL)
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (IL)
     Davis (TN)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Deutch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Donnelly (IN)
     Driehaus
     Edwards (MD)
     Edwards (TX)
     Ehlers
     Ellison
     Ellsworth
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Foster
     Frank (MA)
     Fudge
     Garamendi
     Gonzalez
     Gordon (TN)
     Grayson
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hall (NY)
     Halvorson
     Hare
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Heinrich
     Herseth Sandlin
     Higgins
     Himes
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hirono
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson Lee (TX)
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kagen
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick (MI)
     Kilroy
     Kind
     Kirkpatrick (AZ)
     Kissell
     Klein (FL)
     Kosmas
     Kratovil
     Kucinich
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee (CA)
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Loebsack
     Lofgren, Zoe
     Lowey
     Lujan
     Lynch
     Maffei
     Markey (MA)
     Marshall
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McMahon
     McNerney
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Melancon
     Michaud
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, George
     Mollohan
     Moore (KS)
     Moore (WI)
     Moran (VA)
     Murphy (CT)
     Murphy (NY)
     Nadler (NY)
     Napolitano
     Neal (MA)
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor (AZ)
     Payne
     Perlmutter
     Perriello
     Peters
     Peterson
     Pingree (ME)
     Polis (CO)
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Richardson
     Rodriguez
     Ross
     Rothman (NJ)
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Salazar
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schauer
     Schiff
     Schrader
     Schwartz
     Scott (GA)
     Scott (VA)
     Serrano
     Sestak
     Shea-Porter
     Sherman
     Sires
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Space
     Speier
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stupak
     Sutton
     Tanner
     Taylor
     Teague
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Tonko
     Towns
     Tsongas
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walz
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Watson
     Watt
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Welch
     Wilson (OH)
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Yarmuth

                               NAYS--180

     Aderholt
     Adler (NJ)
     Akin
     Alexander
     Austria
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Baird
     Barrett (SC)
     Bartlett
     Barton (TX)
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boehner
     Bonner
     Bono Mack
     Boozman
     Boustany
     Brady (TX)
     Bright
     Broun (GA)
     Brown (SC)
     Brown-Waite, Ginny
     Buchanan
     Burgess
     Burton (IN)
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Cao
     Capito
     Carter
     Cassidy
     Castle
     Chaffetz
     Coble
     Coffman (CO)
     Cole
     Conaway
     Crenshaw
     Culberson
     Davis (KY)
     Dent
     Diaz-Balart, L.
     Diaz-Balart, M.
     Djou
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Emerson
     Flake
     Fleming
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Garrett (NJ)
     Gerlach
     Giffords
     Gingrey (GA)
     Gohmert
     Goodlatte
     Granger
     Graves (GA)
     Graves (MO)
     Griffith
     Guthrie
     Hall (TX)
     Harper
     Hastings (WA)
     Heller
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Hill
     Hunter
     Inglis
     Issa
     Jenkins
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Jordan (OH)
     King (IA)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Kline (MN)
     Lamborn
     Lance
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Latta
     Lee (NY)
     Lewis (CA)
     Linder
     LoBiondo
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     Lummis

[[Page H5938]]


     Lungren, Daniel E.
     Mack
     Manzullo
     Marchant
     Markey (CO)
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCaul
     McClintock
     McCotter
     McHenry
     McKeon
     McMorris Rodgers
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Minnick
     Mitchell
     Moran (KS)
     Murphy, Tim
     Myrick
     Neugebauer
     Nunes
     Nye
     Olson
     Paul
     Paulsen
     Pence
     Petri
     Pitts
     Platts
     Poe (TX)
     Posey
     Price (GA)
     Putnam
     Radanovich
     Rehberg
     Reichert
     Roe (TN)
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Rooney
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Scalise
     Schmidt
     Schock
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shimkus
     Shuler
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Stearns
     Sullivan
     Terry
     Thompson (PA)
     Thornberry
     Tiberi
     Turner
     Upton
     Walden
     Westmoreland
     Whitfield
     Wilson (SC)
     Wittman
     Wolf
     Young (AK)

                             NOT VOTING--15

     Cantor
     Capuano
     Doyle
     Fallin
     Hodes
     Hoekstra
     King (NY)
     Maloney
     Murphy, Patrick
     Ortiz
     Quigley
     Tiahrt
     Titus
     Wamp
     Young (FL)

                              {time}  1200

  Messrs. HELLER, CARTER, and BAIRD changed their vote from ``yea'' to 
``nay.''
  So the resolution was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________