[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 20 (Wednesday, February 9, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H593-H596]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  HOW BUSINESS GETS DONE IN WASHINGTON

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson) is 
recognized for 30 minutes.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, this evening I want to 
take some time to talk about how business gets done here in Washington. 
Now, I guess you can call this the lessons of a rookie. I'm starting my 
third year here, my second term; and during my first two years in the 
111th Congress, frankly, it was like it was politics as usual, and I 
think the American people have had enough of that.
  The American people are at a point where it's not about Republicans, 
it's not about Democrats. What they're looking for are problem solvers; 
and, fundamentally, I think that is what's most important as we go 
forward as problem solvers because we know this country is facing some 
tremendous issues. We are at record unemployment, the highest sustained 
level of unemployment since the Great Depression. We have a national 
debt that has amassed to over $14 trillion, impacting our children and 
our grandchildren's future.
  We have all kinds of significant issues facing this Nation, and we 
need solutions; but the solutions, they have to be solutions, I 
believe, that are not politics as usual. They need to be solutions that 
are, frankly, based on what I call the principle of leadership. It's 
the very foundation of how we make our decisions, not based on a 
political agenda, not based on the whims or the will of a few or many 
but, frankly, based on principles; and that's what I want to spend some 
time this evening talking about, principled leadership.
  In my time in Congress, I've seen us make a lot of decisions, an 
awful lot of decisions. Many of those impact not just the Nation but 
the world, and I see decisions made by different Members using 
different methodology. For me, I really do fall back on principled 
leadership. I actually fall back on values, principles that I learned 
as a youth. Frankly, I take them from my experience in Scouting, 41 
years. This is my 41st year in Scouting. It's a great organization. It 
serves boys and girls and develops them into fine young people, 
productive, active citizens.
  When I make a decision, I ask myself four questions, and it may sound 
a little old fashioned for some folks, but, frankly, it works for me 
and it works consistently. I ask myself four questions, principles that 
come from the Scout promise, actually. The first question I take from 
that Scout promise, that first question is when I'm making a decision, 
I'm faced with an issue and I need to decide, first question is, what 
is my duty to God? Is the decision I'm making, is it righteous 
according to God's word? Is it according to my faith? Frankly, if the 
answer is ``no,'' I don't go any further on to question two, three, and 
four.
  If I do go on, the next question is, what is my duty to the country? 
That is, frankly, what does the Constitution say about the decision 
that I'm about to make?

                              {time}  1730

  Is it according to the rule of law? Is it according to those 
liberties, those freedoms, those rights, and the distribution of powers 
that are outlined within the Constitution? Because there are certain 
things the Federal Government is supposed to do, according to the 
Constitution. That amount of responsibility is literally very tiny, 
though, compared to what the States have retained for rights; and that 
is small compared to what we, as individual citizens, have as all those 
rights that are provided through our creator.
  So my second question I ask, what is my duty to country? The third 
question I ask myself in terms of principles is, what is my duty to 
others? Now, others for me are what I call the 660,000 really smart 
people that I work for in the Pennsylvania Fifth Congressional 
District. It's pretty easy to determine what the intended consequence 
is and the intended impact on the citizens that I serve and, frankly, 
that all of my colleagues serve. Because on the first page of any 
bill--I don't care if it's a one-page bill or it's 2,000 pages, that 
intended consequence is pretty easily and clearly articulated. It's the 
unintended consequences, however, that you have to work at. It's the 
unintended consequences that can have the most impact on the lives of 
the people that we serve. And that's why communication is such an 
incredibly important responsibility with our constituents, including 
why we're here in Washington using different methods and an open-door 
policy and receiving, soliciting input, feedback from our constituents.
  But also certainly when we're back in the district, and we're in 
those communities and we're communicating with people, and they're 
talking about the situations that they're in, and how the Federal 
Government--the things that are going on are impacting their lives. 
That is tremendous, valuable information that we gain when we are back 
in the district, and that is what district work weeks are all about. 
It's about communications and feedback with your employer, and it's the 
people that you work for.
  Finally, for me, the fourth question I ask myself in terms of 
principles and principled leadership has to do with duty to self. And, 
again, I borrow from Scouting, my years and decades in Scouting. The 
questions I ask myself are: am I prepared to do my best on each and 
every decision I make? And that is, have I worked hard to get all the 
information that I need? Have I worked hard to reach out to my 
constituents to find out, as I've read a bill, to make sure that they 
have access to it so that they understand and I can determine and 
solicit from them their feedback and what the unintended consequences 
are. Am I prepared to do my best?
  Those are principles that have served me well these first 2 years, 
and I certainly continue my commitment and follow principled leadership 
going forward in serving both this country and certainly the citizens 
of the Pennsylvania Fifth Congressional District.
  Another set of principles that I'm pleased to share tonight came from 
a group of citizens within the area of the Pennsylvania Fifth 
Congressional District, and these are principles that were outlined by 
citizens who were concerned. They were concerned over the past 2 years 
with the things that they saw going on in their Nation, in their 
country. They came together because they were afraid. They were afraid 
of what the future held. And this was in Lycoming County of the 
Pennsylvania Fifth Congressional District. But you know what, these are 
principles that I have actually seen put forward by everyday citizens 
all over the Nation, certainly throughout my congressional district.
  And I appreciate the fact that they took the time to put this 
together. I

[[Page H594]]

have a scroll here with--I'm not going to roll this out completely 
because it would definitely be a hazard. It is a wonderful scroll with 
over 4,000 names on it of individuals who have put their signatures to 
standing for principles and expectations from government.
  The principles, as put forward, were: ``We, the people of the city of 
Williamsport, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the United States 
of America, declare that we are free and independent citizens, and that 
we are entitled to inherent and inalienable rights for which our 
ancestors fought to protect and for which they established governments 
to ensure.'' Rights that, within our founding documents, come from our 
creator.
  ``In the charters of those governments, our rights have been clearly 
and undeniably established to the exclusion of any encroachment by the 
civil servants elected to carry out the people's business. However, a 
long train of abuses and usurpations has evinced a clear trend which, 
if followed to its logical conclusion, would reduce the People under 
absolute Despotism. We protest these encroachments upon our natural and 
indefeasible rights and liberties and demand that they be redressed.'' 
And among the abuses, they outlined seven principles, you know, 
principles that I think are incredibly important, things that you've 
heard about already on the floor tonight. And as you tune in, these are 
issues that have taken front stage in terms of our national debate.
  Starting with taxation. You know, taxes have grown both continuously 
and geometrically both in the number and scope, such as greater than 
half of all of one's income is now claimed by the government. Taxes are 
something that we battle on here. And it's a fundamental decision of, 
first of all, the scope of government, what government should be in the 
business of doing, what constitutionally are those issues that should 
be funded. We are going to be engaging in significant debate through 
the rest of this week and certainly next week as we look at a 
continuing resolution of what is the proper role of government, and we 
will certainly be looking at how we fund that and the amount of taxes 
that are levied on individuals.
  We had that debate at the end of the 111th Congress. In the 111th 
Congress, this country was facing the largest tax increase in its 
history, and it would have been devastating. It would have raised taxes 
on every American. It would have raised taxes on individuals, on 
families, on job creators, on small businesses. And I am pleased that 
in the 12th hour we were able to at least extend what's called the 
``Bush-era tax cuts,'' and that's been good for America. Frankly, we 
should have been able to make them permanent. That is something I think 
we need to obviously continue to work towards.
  But at least by extending those, we were able to restore some 
certainty, some certainty for families, for individuals and, frankly, 
for job creators so that they could do their business plans and at 
least restore some confidence going forward in this economy, confidence 
to allow small businesses to be able to invest their resources, to 
invest in capital, expanding and building a new site or business by 
expanding a product line or a service line, and hiring, creating jobs.
  Frankly, many of the individuals over the past year and a half, as 
I've traveled around in my congressional district--and I talk with 
folks who I know are the job creators. These are individuals that every 
year would take their resources, their profit--and that's not a bad 
word; that's a good sign of good economic times--and they would 
reinvest a good portion of that profit back into their businesses, and 
they would create jobs.
  You know, in the past 2 years, because of uncertainty--much of it 
around taxation--they have been sitting on the sidelines. They didn't 
know what was coming. Health care, the ObamaCare that would raise taxes 
would put mandates. If you are an employer with more than 50 employees, 
that means that more financial burdens are going to be placed on you, 
more mandates, so there is no encouragement to grow your business. I 
was very pleased when we were able to extend those tax cuts. That's the 
American people's money. They have had that for almost a decade, so we 
need to continue that.
  The second principle that these good folks have identified is 
national debt. The public credit has been tapped beyond any reasonable 
ability to repay within the current generation. I think our national 
debt is somewhere around--every man, woman, and child. I go out into 
schools, and I like to read to the kindergarten kids. But I love 
getting out to the seniors because they are getting ready to go out 
into the world. They are just on the threshold of life. And I usually 
open up by saying, First of all, I work for you. I'm your Member of 
Congress. I work for you. And each of you owes $143,000, and I don't 
take checks.

                              {time}  1740

  And that's a good icebreaker, for a sad notation of that really is 
how much each of them, each of them owes towards our national debt. And 
so we are approaching over $14 trillion at this point. What that does, 
I think, is, frankly, it's probably our largest threat that we have to 
national security, the fact that we have that much debt accumulated, 
and that 60 percent of that debt is held by foreign countries. Our 
number one lender is China. And I think that just puts us in a very, 
very dangerous situation for the future.
  So I am joined this evening by a good friend of mine who lives in 
Lycoming County. Mr. Marino, if you want to step up and talk a little 
bit about your thoughts on national debt and what that means to us 
going forward that would be great. Go ahead and join me at the podium 
there. This is a great Member, Tom Marino. He represents a neighboring 
district of mine. We share two counties. I've known Tom for a long 
time. I worked in health care in Lycoming County for about 28 years. 
Tom's a former district attorney there, a native son, and I was real 
glad, real proud to see him come to Congress. And so I'm going to yield 
to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. MARINO. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor this evening to applaud 
my good colleague and friend from Pennsylvania. In fact, our districts 
border one another. And we have the same philosophies because we're so 
close--our districts overlap. We share a couple of counties. And we 
both share the sentiments of our constituents, the people who voted for 
us, the people who didn't vote for us. We have a job to do. We've been 
hired and directed to be sent to Washington and very clearly told what 
we need to do, and that is, to continue to cut taxes, cut the spending, 
and downsize Washington, which a combination of those three will create 
jobs.
  Like my good friend from Pennsylvania, we need to get back to a 
simple time when we look at the Constitution, we apply the 
Constitution, we follow the Constitution, and in doing that, I'm 
confident that we are on the right track. I know our constituents from 
Williamsport may be watching us and from around the district. And I 
want to tell those individuals, as well as anyone else watching around 
the country, that we work for you. We know what the message was, and we 
have started that process.
  I look forward to, as my good colleague does, us reaching across the 
aisle, working with our colleagues there to improve the quality of life 
for people in this country, to make sure that our children hopefully 
have a better life than we do, and to make certain that we do not strap 
them with this unbelievable cost and debt that I'm afraid if we do not 
take control of this now, we will absolutely lose total control of it. 
And we just have no idea of how far our finances can be plunged into 
total chaos.
  So, again, I want to thank my colleague for having me here. I'm going 
to sit and listen to more of this debate. I appreciate the time.
  I want to say hello to my friends back in my hometown of 
Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and the people in the 10th Congressional 
District, and also my friends in the adjoining district of my good 
colleague from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman for joining me 
tonight on the floor to kind of share about principles and the needs 
that we have there that we're faced with. Again, these are difficult 
times. One of the things in terms of this much debt that's out there, 
it reminds me of, we just hit kind of a milestone of being

[[Page H595]]

married for 30 years not long ago. And soon after my wife and I were 
married, we bought a house, and it was a time where the country was 
facing a similar situation, such high unemployment and, frankly, high 
inflation. And this is a tremendous concern that I have that with all 
this borrowing and this debt, inflation will naturally follow. And, in 
fact, frankly this was at the term of President Jimmy Carter. We were 
looking at real estate. It was a time of stagflation, both high 
inflation and high unemployment. And my wife and I bought a home. We 
got a great deal because real estate wasn't selling, much like today. 
And we thought we got a--we got a first-time state mortgage rate, and 
we thought we were just doing great because we got this interest rate. 
I believe it was 18 percent, which was pretty good because at the time 
the banks under this type of inflation that naturally comes from this 
kind of borrowing and spending, the banks were lending at 20, 21 
percent interest. So it's something we have a responsibility, not just 
to today's generation, but our children, our grandchildren, to get this 
national debt under consideration.
  The next principle I wanted to touch on was national defense. And the 
principles as presented here talk about, you know, frankly the 
placement of troops without formal acts of war and the concern with 
that. But it also goes on the fact that we put so much into fears of 
war. I happen to believe--I've got a son and a daughter-in-law in the 
United States Army. They were just married yesterday, actually. They're 
in Washington here with us a couple of days. And I'm very proud of our 
troops and what they do. I believe that constitutionally, the national 
defense really is our most important job. It's up front in the 
Constitution that that's what we should do.
  Within the principles outlined here before you, it also--this is the 
finer print, it's hard to read, but it talks about the fact is we can't 
ignore national defense here at home. And we've got threats here. We 
know that. When you look at the southern border, in particular, and 
just the unchecked illegal immigration into this country, and I realize 
many of those folks are coming in search of a better way of life. But 
frankly, there are folks coming in here that I think could easily come 
across the borders, and probably have, that seek to do us harm, and the 
things that they can carry across that border. And so we need to make 
sure that we are securing that border. We should be doing everything we 
possibly can. I think that this principle speaks to that. And I think 
that this country's been failing at making sure that our ports and our 
borders are ultimately safe. This is a different day. This is when our 
enemies don't wear a uniform and don't march under a specific flag. We 
have to take the measures and the precautions to make sure that the 
American people stay safe. That is our number one job in this country, 
safety and security.
  The fourth principle under here to be addressed is political 
corruption. That is something that, frankly, we need individuals at all 
levels of government that are public servants, that approach their jobs 
with a servant's heart, as opposed to being self-serving. And I know 
that Mr. Marino, who is now in Congress, has that servant's heart. Many 
of my new Members, new colleagues, and certainly folks I've served with 
for the past 2 years have that focus and commitment, frankly, of 
service and sacrifice to our constituents. And so I think that is 
something that I respect, the fact that that is on here. That is 
certainly something that's important; that the people that are here are 
serving, not just at the Federal level but the State level and local 
level, for the right reasons.
  Central banking and money. I'm going to switch these charts just to 
be able to read them a little better.

                              {time}  1750

  The fact that the U.S. Congress really has delegated, and I think 
illegally, their vested powers, coining money, taxation, regulation of 
commerce, making treaties, appropriating public money, all of the 
things that the powers of the House in particular is in the legislative 
branch.
  We have three branches of government, but they are not equal. They 
are cosovereign, but they are not coequal. And we have delegated over, 
not just 2 years but many years, much of our authority, much of our 
responsibility as the legislative branch to the administrative branch. 
Much of that has been very inappropriate, and I think it's a time of 
going back to our roots and making sure we go back to those founding 
principles and looking at what is it that we are supposed to be doing 
that we have deferred, that we have designated and allowed the 
administrative branch to now do.
  Certainly principle number six, the central planning: The constant 
intervention of the economy through regulations, subsidies, tariffs, 
taxes, policies have altered the fabric of the Nation's free market 
economy in just these past 2 years, and we are dealing with it now. We 
voted to repeal the Patient Protection Affordable Health Care Act. The 
media sometimes refers to that as the Obamacare plan, and we voted and 
passed on a bipartisan way to repeal that bill for that very reason of 
that top-down approach. Washington is famous for a top-down approach, a 
cookie-cutter approach. I have seen that in my service on the Education 
Committee where it is a cookie cutter.
  No Child Left Behind believes that every child should go to college. 
Well, that's great. If that child has that aspiration and those 
attributes, that's wonderful. I'm going to be dedicated to making sure 
we make that as affordable and as accessible as possible. But not every 
child is on that path. Some children, it will be technical training. 
Some children, it will be going into the military and learning a skill 
or trade there. Some will be going right into the workforce.
  We need to be empowering through education, not top down from a 
central planning way from the national government. We should be 
empowering our best resources for making sure that every child's 
individual potential is developed. Do you know who that is? That's the 
parents, the teachers, the administrators. It's the local school board 
members, that governing body and the local school boards. That's the 
way the founders intended it, because they knew which way it would work 
best.
  Well, I am joined by another neighbor of mine across the State line 
to the north, Mr. Tom Reed from the great State of New York. Mr. Reed, 
thanks for joining us tonight.
  Mr. REED. Thank you very much.
  I stand today to join my colleague and applaud my colleague for 
coming to the floor of the House to articulate what are truly our 
founding and our core principles. We should be going back to our 
Constitution on a regular basis and always recognize that what our 
Founding Fathers envisioned for America was a limited Federal 
Government; not an America that guarantees everyone success in life, 
but, rather, a government that guarantees that every American, every 
man, woman, and child in America has the opportunity to succeed.
  We do not at the Federal Government level pick winners and losers. 
What we should do is always guarantee that the opportunity in America 
is there for our young men, women, and children of the generations of 
today and the generations of tomorrow to have the opportunity to 
succeed and control their own destiny.
  I see an America right now, my good friend from Pennsylvania who is 
articulating here today, the concerns that the Nation of America truly 
is fighting for its existence.
  We see a national debt that is at $14 trillion in publicly held debt. 
You talk to people about the unfunded liability of putting that 
national debt at $200 trillion, plus or minus. That's $242,000 for each 
man, woman, and child in America. That is not sustainable. That will 
not protect this Nation for generations of today and of tomorrow and 
for generations that are not even contemplated as we sit here tonight.
  We have an obligation to stand for this wonderful Nation, and I am 
proud to join my colleague from Pennsylvania and come here tonight and 
cry out for America to say we need to stand once again.
  We need to fight for our very existence, because that existence is 
threatened from that financial insecurity that is brought on by this 
national debt. And I am so confident that when we stand together, when 
we come into this Chamber and we have the open and

[[Page H596]]

vigorous debate that we are going to have and that we will have, 
America will prosper. We will make the hard decisions, and we will 
stand proudly as one Nation for many generations to come that will be 
the beacon and the light to the world for so many who so need us and 
who so want us to succeed, and we are committed to that effort.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. I thank my good friend for joining us 
tonight.
  The last principle is one I am proud to say we have taken some action 
on here. It has to do with legislation, the common practice for 
Congress to shortcut things, shortcut the process, not follow regular 
order, open rules, allowing all Members of Congress to offer 
amendments.
  In my first 2 years of Congress, I never experienced one open rule. I 
didn't know what it was like. And I was shocked to find out that that 
is normally how you do business; that predominantly, most of the time, 
it's under open rule.
  Some of the things we put in place with the rules package is 
requiring bills to be published ahead of time so that not only us as 
Members of Congress but our constituents can read them, and we have 
that chance to solicit input from them, to get that feedback on the 
unintended consequences and how it may impact them; the fact that we 
are now requiring you have to give some evidence, some documentation of 
where the constitutional authority is for doing this bill now, trying 
to keep germaneness in terms of what we put forward versus these 
thousands-of-pages bills that are just a mismatch of different topics.
  So I thank my colleagues tonight for joining me in this. I certainly 
thank the patriots, like those folks from Williamsport, Pennsylvania, 
who joined in sharing those principles that we have, those patriots 
like that all over this Nation. We are just so appreciative for what 
they do for this country as well.

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