[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 84 (Monday, June 13, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H4067-H4073]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1930
                        CREATING JOBS IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Flores). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Griffin) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to some 
of my friends here. We are going to spend some time talking tonight 
about the difficulty this country is having in terms of unemployment 
and job creation. We have got a big challenge ahead of us, and the 
Republicans here in the House have a lot of good ideas about how we can 
get this economy going, how we can take the regulatory burden off of 
small businesses, how we can reform the Tax Code for individuals and 
for businesses so we can be competitive.
  I would like to yield to my friend from Illinois, Adam Kinzinger.
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. I thank the gentleman from Arkansas for 
yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, we are facing some pretty tough times in our country. I 
remember the days when we had very low unemployment, and if you wanted 
a job you had multiple offers when you got out of college, and 
everybody needed you and the economy was thriving. And now we are 
creeping back up in the unemployment.
  I remember when we passed an $800 billion spending package out of the 
House of Representatives--$800 billion--and we were told that if we 
pass this spending package, unemployment will not exceed 8 percent, and 
we approached 10 percent. Thankfully, unemployment began to go down, 
but now it is stalled out, and it is beginning to go up again.
  What we have is this idea of we need to spend, we need to borrow, and 
we need to tax our way to prosperity. And what does that do? Well, I 
will tell you what it does. It raises our taxes, and it just piles 
burdens on our children and grandchildren--and us. Yes, we all care 
about our children and grandchildren, but even this generation now is 
swimming in debt.
  Think about this: If you combine the cost of the war in Iraq and the 
cost of the war in Afghanistan, you combine them this year, do you 
realize that is less expensive than what we are paying just in interest 
on our national debt? Just in interest. And that is going to continue 
to grow. As we add more and more debt, that interest is going to 
continue to get bigger and bigger. And do you know what? We have 
another year of deficits, so the interest is bigger, and we have 
another year, so the interest is bigger.
  Meanwhile, the job creators, the people who really get this economy 
rolling, the people who we are going to rely on to take individuals who 
are unemployed and take them from recipients of tax dollars--where they 
don't want to be--to taxpayers, the small business owners and these 
factory owners that we want to get manufacturing back, they are the 
ones that have to say, look, I have to invest for 10 and 15 and 20 
years in the future, and all I see is a future of debt, doubt, and 
despair.
  I think my colleagues will agree with me when I say that we live in 
the greatest country in the world, and I think they will agree with me 
when I say there is absolutely no reason, there is no reason that 
Americans should begin to accept the fact that we are in decline.
  America doesn't have to be a nation in decline. America is a world 
leader, and we can retain our position as the world leader, but it is 
not going to be through what is done in government. It is not going to 
be by passing more regulations. It is not going to be by passing more 
taxation. It is not going to be by more and more rules and redtape. No. 
It is going to be done by restoring that entrepreneurial spirit that 
made our country so great in the first place.
  I remember as a kid watching cowboy movies and seeing the old West 
and how America built the country that we have today, and learning 
about the Industrial Revolution and learning about those folks that 
worked long hours to make what we have, and being very proud of what I 
saw, every moment. But we began to accept that is no longer in our DNA. 
Ladies and gentleman, that is not true. That is in our DNA. That is who 
we are.
  We can recover from this massive debt we are seeing, and we can do it 
easily. Well, we have got to cut spending, but we have got to get 
people back to work.
  My home State of Illinois, the President's home State of Illinois, is 
a shining example of what not to do to create jobs. In Illinois, we 
just increased the individual tax rate. Well, that was probably not 
overly brilliant, because now people are leaving Illinois at an even 
faster rate than they were prior.
  But then we did something especially crazy--we increased the 
corporate tax rate in Illinois. So now you have our neighbors in 
Indiana that are really

[[Page H4068]]

having a field day with businesses coming over to them. You have our 
friends in Texas and in the South, like my friend from Arkansas, that 
are begging folks to come over and bring their businesses from 
Illinois. In fact, The Wall Street Journal just came out with an 
article that said while Illinois has raised $300 million in receipts 
from this tax increase, they have given away $240 million just to keep 
businesses there that were leaving because of the tax increase. Then we 
even contemplate in these halls increasing taxes on job creators again.

  Debt, doubt, and despair and big bloated bureaucracy is in our future 
right now. It doesn't need to be. Our future is the future of the 
America that when you remember your parents and grandparents working 
hard, that is what we are going to be again.
  The situation we are in is not fun. The situation we are in right now 
is very difficult. It is going to take a lot of hard work. It is going 
to take tough proposals. We put forward a budget plan to begin to get 
us out of the deficit and balance the budget. But you know what we got 
from the other side of the aisle, as my colleagues can attest to, is 
just demonization. No, not an alternative that we can take our budget 
and their budget and try to come up and meet in the middle somewhere, 
which the American people want. They want both sides to talk and come 
to a conclusion. But we didn't get that. We got television commercials. 
We got attempts to frighten senior citizens. We got politics as usual.
  I don't think it is any doubt if you are watching, I am a young guy. 
I can tell you that the generation today believes in an America that I 
believe in. We see people go overseas all the time to Iraq and 
Afghanistan and defend freedom and stand for what they believe in. And 
do you know what? Some of these people going overseas today were 8 
years old when 9/11 happened, but they know what we represent.
  I will not accept second place. My colleagues on the Republican side 
of the aisle will not accept an America in decline, because we will 
maintain our position as the greatest country in the world. But, ladies 
and gentlemen, to do that, we have got to make tough decisions. It 
can't be about the next election anymore. It has got to be about the 
next generation. It can't be about 2012. It has got to be somewhat 
about 2011--right now.
  So I thank the gentleman from Arkansas for organizing this 
opportunity to just talk to the American people and say, look, we want 
to get people back to work, but you can't spend, you can't tax, and you 
can't borrow your way to prosperity. Never accept second best. We will 
continue to maintain our role as the greatest country in the world, and 
I kind of like being in that position.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I thank the gentleman.
  I hear a lot of folks who talk about the problem that we have 
economically, the debt problem, all of the many things that we have 
been trying to address here in the House, and I hear them say, well, if 
we can just get to where we need to be after the next Presidential 
election, after the next President, whoever that President is, after 
that President is sworn in in January of 2013, if we can just get to 
that point in time, then we can really address the problems.

                              {time}  1940

  That scares me because I don't think we can wait anywhere near that 
long. In fact, I think we are already living on borrowed time in terms 
of the crisis that this country is facing. We know for a fact President 
Clinton appointed a Medicare commission over a decade ago, a bipartisan 
Medicare commission.
  Why did he do that? He did it because we had a problem then. We had a 
problem then in 1998, and we still have that problem now. We have a 
problem with the insolvency of Medicare. We have a problem with rising 
health care costs. We have a problem with our debt and the deficits 
that we run year after year after year. We have a problem with too much 
regulation--too much government regulation--which stifles job creation. 
We have a problem with our Tax Code. If you're talking about our 
business Tax Code and business taxes, we have a problem there. Why? 
Because it's hard to compete with other countries when you've got the 
highest corporate tax rate in the world.
  It's not about whether you like big business or small business. It's 
about job creators. And our Tax Code discourages job creation. If 
you're talking about individual income tax, we've got a problem there, 
too. We've got one of the most complicated Tax Codes.
  So what have we done about it here in the House? Well, on all of 
these counts we have acted. We have acted. And we've been passing 
legislation that addresses the jobs issue, our spending issue, 
Medicare, the Tax Code, overregulation. This is what we've been doing 
day in and day out since we got here.
  And I would like to yield to some of my friends. Before I do, I would 
just like to say this: we're the only one with a plan. Where's the 
Senate's plan? Where's the President's plan?
  So as we discuss here tonight, I just ask us all to think about where 
is the other plan that we can compare ours to. There's not one. In 
fact, a former Democratic National Committee chair who's running for 
Senate now in Virginia, Tim Kaine, said today, It's a pretty bad deal 
when the Senate hasn't even passed a budget. The U.S. Senate doesn't 
have a plan. The President doesn't have a plan. This House has a plan. 
And we're working hard every day to execute it and implement it.
  I would like to yield now to the gentlelady from Washington.
  Ms. HERRERA BEUTLER. Thank you. I appreciate my friend's work here on 
the floor.
  I just came back from a week in my home district in southwest 
Washington. It's a tremendous place. It's where I grew up. Some of my 
fondest memories are in and around southwest Washington, whether it was 
lakes or rivers or streams or working my first job at the Vancouver 
Mall. It's not even called the Vancouver Mall anymore. I had a lot of 
opportunities--a lot of opportunities that I am very worried the next 
generation of Washingtonians are not going to have. And let me tell you 
why. Our unemployment has been over double digits going on 3 years now.
  Let me read this to you because this is important. These aren't just 
empty numbers. These represent families and lives: Clark County, 10.2 
percent; Cowlitz County; 11.9 percent; Lewis County, 13.2 percent; 
Pacific County, 12.5 percent; Wahkiakum, 11.8 percent; Skamania, 12.9 
percent; and Thurston County is at 8 percent.
  Let me compare those numbers quickly. I'm not happy about 8 percent. 
I'm not happy about 13 percent. But there's a slight difference in the 
reason that the Thurston County numbers are lower than the other 
counties, and that's because that's where the State government is 
housed.
  So there are more government jobs, more public sector jobs in that 
area. But the rest of the district and even in Thurston County is based 
on small businesses. These are the hearts and souls of our economy. 
Small business owners, entrepreneurs, mom-and-pop shops.
  I got to tour Somarakis Vacuum Pumps. He is an engineer that started 
a small little company. Built it up. He's passing it on to his son. 
He's now expanded into two counties. He has a vision to grow and hire 
people. In fact, he has been able to stay afloat these last few years 
because a lot of the trade that he's done, he deals with other 
corporations and other countries across the world, which is one of the 
reasons he's been able to remain competitive.
  You know what he told me this last week when I was home and I was 
touring his new facility? He said, Jaime--I wish I could give you his 
Greek accent, but I can't--he said, Jaime, I'm a proud American. I 
built this company because I believe in the entrepreneurial spirit of 
America. I believe in this country. But you in Washington, D.C.--and 
he's speaking to the governing class here--are making it harder for me 
to function. You're making it harder for me to survive: the 
unpredictability, the high taxes, the new energy proposals, some of 
which the President has supported.
  He said, Jaime, if that cap-and-trade bill went into effect or if you 
increase my energy taxes through the EPA, I will be out of business. I 
will not be able to hire the next generation of engineers and pass this 
company on.
  And other small businesses around our whole region and around our 
Nation are saying the same thing: can

[[Page H4069]]

you give us some predictability, quit raising our taxes, get the EPA 
off our backs. We all want to protect our way of life, but what's 
happening right now is small business owners, the job creators, are 
being squeezed. And why?
  I was reflecting on, it's true, neither the Senate nor the President 
has put forward a really strong governing jobs agenda this year. When 
we got to meet with the President a couple of weeks ago, he pointed to 
some of the bills that they passed last year, and some of the plans. If 
I reflect on the $700 billion-plus bailout or the $800 billion stimulus 
or the health care bill that was over a trillion dollars, one would 
think if we spent that kind of money, we would have the jobs to show 
for it.
  But where are the jobs? I just read you the unemployment numbers for 
southwest Washington State. They have actually not gone up in 
tremendous rise. So, clearly, borrowing and spending more has, at the 
very least, a negligible effect. We can do better. We have to do 
better. The way we do that--stop bailing out big corporations, banks, 
auto dealers. Right? Stop spending more money.
  Fast fact: I had some job creators in my office a couple of weeks 
ago, and they were asking for more investment. And I asked them about 
the stimulus--the $800 billion stimulus bill that the President and the 
Democrats here voted on and passed last year--how much that had 
actually stimulated job creation. You know what they told me? Less than 
3 percent of that number actually went to build roads. Remember the 
shovel-ready hurrah that was talked about? We're passing this because 
we're going to build infrastructure. I'm one of those who believes 
infrastructure is important. Less than 3.5 percent was actually used to 
build roads.
  Where is the rest of that money? My goodness, we borrowed almost half 
of that. We're going to pass the interest and the debt on to the next 
generation, and yet we didn't even use it on what we said we were going 
to use it on. That tells me that we're spending too much, we're 
borrowing too much. It's time to cut back.
  Every family in southwest Washington and across this Nation has cut 
their own budget back in recent years. Every small business owner, job 
creators, they will tell you--I have several in my area who haven't 
even taken a paycheck in several years in order that they not lay 
anyone else off. And they're looking at us, saying, Why can't you live 
within your means? Well, guess what? We're going to. Not only are we 
going to make sensible cuts and reductions, we're also going to 
stimulate job growth.
  Energy was one of the things I mentioned. In the last couple of 
months we have passed off this House floor several bills that allow us 
to drill for energy here in America, using American entrepreneurialism, 
American innovation, and creating American jobs. I call on our Senate 
to pass those bills and the President to sign them into law. They're 
saying thousands and thousands of jobs could be created here in America 
if we simply take advantage of the resources in our backyards. That 
will do several things. It will drive down the cost of gas, which is 
going to hit every family and every small business here in the next 
several months. That's one immediate step we can take, in addition to 
cutting back overspending. That's a jobs production bill.

                              {time}  1950

  We could also make sure that we allow for some predictability. With 
these Federal regulations that are coming out, small business owners 
call me regularly, and say, Good grief. I just barely get one rule 
under order, and you're sending me five new ones. I can't keep up.
  Here is the difference. Small businesses, small business owners, they 
can't just hire someone who is not being productive and just dedicate 
that person's time to going through Federal regulations. Maybe a big 
corporation could, one which can retain lots of lobbyists or lawyers; 
but at the True Value Hardware on Main Street in Ridgefield, both the 
owners actually work the store, so they can't just waste money to jump 
through government regulations and government hoops. It has got to 
stop.
  Last year, the EPA released 900 new regulations--900. Do you know 
what the EPA acting director for the water department told us on the 
Transportation Committee just 2 or 3 months ago? She basically said she 
didn't have to take into account any of those regulations and their 
impact on our economy. That wasn't her concern. I'm sorry. Since when 
does the government put forward regulations and rules and then say, 
``We don't have any concern for what that's going to do to the 
economy''? That's why we're in the mess we're in now.
  We can change it. We can take some steps to bring oversight to these 
regulatory agencies. Man, they're just going crazy. We're going to work 
to streamline those, and we're going to do it now because House 
Republicans believe and understand that job creators and job growth 
occur in the private sector when individuals and entrepreneurs have the 
freedom to grow and to develop, not when they're hampered, not when 
their wrists are tied, not when they're told, You have to jump through 
these hoops just to sell your product or just to hire someone. It has 
got to stop, which is why we're putting forward and why House 
Republicans are proud to put forward bills that are either going to 
pull back some of these regulations or streamline them, reform them or 
allow for more American job growth here in the United States.
  So I appreciate that, and I look forward to hearing what my other 
colleagues have to say about this pro-growth agenda.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Thank you.
  Before I yield to my colleagues, I would like to just go through the 
plan that the House Republicans have put together that certainly 
includes addressing the debt, that certainly includes addressing our 
spending. It's a plan that we believe will help get us on the right 
fiscal path and help this country--the private sector--create jobs. 
There is much, much more to what we're trying to do here in the House 
to encourage private sector job creation, and I'd like to run through 
some of those.
  As I indicated, certainly we need to deal with the debt. That's why 
we talk about reforming Medicare and saving Medicare for those on it 
and saving it for the next generation. We talk about that a lot because 
that directly relates to our debt, and we have to get our debt under 
control if we're going to have the type of job growth that we are 
accustomed to in this country: job growth based on technological 
advancement and innovation. So dealing with the debt is a critical 
component of encouraging private sector job creation.
  Yet there are other parts to our plan, which include increasing 
energy development, maximizing energy production. We have passed 
numerous bills here in the House that will encourage drilling in the 
gulf and that will encourage drilling offshore so that we can create 
more jobs in energy production and become energy independent. It's not 
just a jobs issue. It's a national security issue.
  There is also the issue of the Tax Code that I referred to earlier. 
We can't be competitive in this country if we don't reform the way we 
tax individuals and the way we tax businesses. Ultimately, when 
businesses decide to land somewhere, they look and they ask, Is that 
where I want to do business? Unfortunately, we have created an 
environment in this country that runs business off. We want businesses 
to look around the world and say, The United States is where I want to 
create jobs. That's the only place for me. In order to do that, we've 
got to make sure that we have rules in place that encourage private 
sector job creation.
  I'd now like to yield to my colleague from Colorado.
  Mr. GARDNER. I thank the gentleman from Arkansas for organizing 
tonight's conversation with the American people about what our plan for 
job creation is all about and how we're going to, once again, restore 
the greatness of this country by getting America back to work, by 
creating an economy for job creators.
  The gentlelady from Washington reminded me of my visits throughout my 
district this past week in eastern Colorado and northern Colorado, 
Colorado's Fourth Congressional District. It's around 6 o'clock back 
home, and there are probably a lot of people who are just now coming 
home from work or

[[Page H4070]]

who are about to get off work. They're worried about how they're going 
to continue to pay for their daughter's education, how they're going to 
make ends meet, what they're going to do to afford that car payment.

  I and every single person here tonight will assure them that we have 
a plan for jobs, that we have voted on our plan for jobs and that we 
will continue to pursue policies to create jobs in this country, not 
because they're created by government but because we get government out 
of the way and allow the private sector to flourish.
  This last week in Colorado, I met with a number of businesses. I 
toured a number of businesses in northern and eastern Colorado, and I 
had the opportunity to talk to the leadership of those companies and to 
the people who work on the lines in the factories. I was struck by one 
statement, one statement by an individual who said, It's time that we 
let loose the innovators and the entrepreneurs in America.
  What are we doing to let loose the innovators and the entrepreneurs 
in this great country?
  I know what the Republicans have been doing to make sure that we're 
reducing regulations, to make sure that we have an energy policy that, 
instead of strangling the American working family, helps the American 
working family and that opens up our resources. We can do so in an 
environmentally responsible manner. We have done it, and we will 
continue to do it. We will continue to pursue tax policies that are 
fair and that don't chase businesses overseas but that allow those jobs 
to be created right here.
  Another business owner in my State gave me a call last year, and 
said, You know what? My number one competitor just moved to Ireland, 
and I'm left with a choice. I can either stay headquartered here in 
Colorado and pay 30 percent more in taxes than they do or I can go 
overseas and find another place to do business and take those jobs with 
me.
  That's not the kind of choice that we ought to be presenting in this 
country to the men and women who create business in the United States. 
Instead of deciding where to go, the question they ought to be asking 
is, How much can we grow right here in the U.S.? Along these lines, of 
the factories that I toured and of the manufacturing plants that I 
toured, I spoke with one employee who came up to me and said, I'm just 
glad this business is located in Colorado. I'm glad they chose 
Colorado.
  It wasn't that long ago that I was a State legislator. I remember one 
of the debates that we were dealing with was a particular regulation 
that many small businesses were struggling with. They were trying to 
figure out whether or not they could survive under that regulation. 
While the debate in the Colorado State Legislature was taking place on 
whether or not this regulation was good for job creation or not, there 
was an advertisement on one of the State's largest radio stations from 
our neighbor to the north, the great State of Wyoming. Their Chamber of 
Commerce and one of their municipalities said, Come to Wyoming, a 
business friendly place. They said that because Colorado was forcing a 
regulation on its business owners that was going to put the men and 
women of our State out of business. They saw an opportunity. They said, 
Come to us. We'll take your jobs. We'll take your businesses. You can 
do it right here, and you'll be better for it.
  That's not the kind of policy I want for Colorado, and that's not the 
kind of policy I want for the United States. The policy of this country 
should be this:
  We will make sure our government gets out of your way to let you do 
what you do best--run your businesses, your families and your lives. 
We're not going to foster policies that force you to make a decision to 
go overseas because of an arbitrary decision in our Tax Code or a 
regulatory scheme that says, Don't do business here because we're going 
to make it too tough on you to do business.
  Our plan for jobs in the 112th Congress is clear. Unfortunately, on 
the other side of the aisle, my colleagues on the Democratic side seem 
to have labeled their 112th Congress mission the ``kick the can down 
the road'' tour.

                              {time}  2000

  It is the kick the can down the road tour because they're not going 
to present solutions for Medicare. They're not going to present 
solutions to solve our energy crisis. They're not going to present 
solutions to solve our debt and deficit, but no, they're going to pass 
it on to the next generation. They're going to kick the can down the 
road and say, You know what? If you're 50 or 55, we're going to go 
ahead and put the burden all on you, all on you.
  That is not a solution for this country. That is debt, doubt, and 
despair, as my colleague from Illinois just a few minutes ago so 
eloquently stated. Debt, doubt, and despair. I haven't heard a campaign 
theme of debt, doubt, and despair, but that is certainly what they are 
running on.
  We can do better, and I'm glad to be part of the 112th Congress and 
the Republican majority that has said we will create jobs in this 
country, we will get back to economic opportunity, and we will start by 
taking care of future generations, and that work begins today.
  I thank the gentleman from Arkansas for his time.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Thank you to the gentleman from Colorado.
  I now yield to the gentlelady from Alabama.
  Mrs. ROBY. I appreciate my colleague from Arkansas for giving us time 
tonight to talk about this most important issue, which is jobs.
  It is the number one issue here, and what I see and we've all 
testified to tonight is that, as we travel throughout our districts, 
the number one thing that we hear from business owners all throughout 
the United States is the heavy hand of government has created so much 
uncertainty that the private sector, even those who have the ability to 
create jobs, are not doing so because they're fearful. They don't know 
what the Federal Government is going to do to them next, and this is so 
evident by the recent unemployment numbers that have come out.
  Since the first day that this administration took office through the 
end of April of this year, the economy has lost 2.5 million jobs. That 
is an average of 3,044 jobs every single day. And unfortunately, and 
just to talk about the gentlelady from Washington's unemployment 
numbers, those numbers aren't even necessarily correct, because the 
rate is so much higher because so many job seekers are giving up and 
they are leaving the labor force.
  I traveled, like you all did, throughout my district this week, and I 
found myself at Rand Manufacturing, and they manufacture water heaters. 
It's a household name. They have over 1,000 jobs in the city of 
Montgomery, and they brought me into a room that was used for research 
and development for their company, but it was an addition, a $1 million 
addition to their headquarters which is already over 700,000 square 
feet, but $1 million that they had to invest due to regulation alone. 
This is not a research and development facility to further their 
products. This is to keep up with the government regulations that they 
have to comply with.
  How in the world can we expect the private sector to invest in job 
creation when every dime they have is going toward complying with 
government regulation? Companies in the United States of America are 
hitting the brakes on hiring and production. And to go back to the U.S. 
factory sector, the engine of our recovery, it had its biggest 1-month 
slowdown since 1984, and they showed private sector hiring dropped 
drastically.
  You know, I'm a mom. I have two children, Margaret and George, who 
you hear me talk about often, and a lot of Members have their children 
up here this week with them. And as I look around the floor and I see 
these young people, I think: This is why we're here. And as was so 
eloquently said, it has to be about the future generation and not the 
next election. And when I look into my children's eyes, I am reminded 
about how important it is that we do all we can, which is what we are. 
We're leading. We're doing all we can to lift this heavy hand of 
government. And when I go to the grocery store and when I'm at the gas 
pump, we see it. We feel it. We know exactly what is going on.
  In January of 2011, President Obama said entrepreneurs embody the 
promise of America, the idea that if you have a good idea and you are 
willing to work

[[Page H4071]]

hard and see it through, you can succeed in this country, and in 
pursuing this promise, entrepreneurs also play a critical role in 
expanding our economy and creating jobs. That was President Obama in 
January of 2011. The Obama administration has done nothing to encourage 
businesses to create jobs. They have been obstructionists, causing 
uncertainty, this growing uncertainty with this overreaching 
regulation. Economic growth has been stifled.
  House Republicans have taken steps to reduce spending in a meaningful 
way by approving all the legislation that the gentleman from Arkansas 
talked about to decrease spending for the rest of the year, and we 
adopted a budget that will cut nearly $6 trillion over the course of 
the next 10 years.

  Our friends on the other side of the aisle have done nothing to 
demonstrate their commitment to private job growth in this country. 
Increased spending, misguided attacks on the budget that we passed, 
raising the debt without deficit reduction, and burdensome 
regulations--this is the plan being offered by the other side of the 
aisle, and this is not what the American people sent us here to 
Washington to do for that future generation.
  I ask the President and my Democrat colleagues to let us make sure 
that entrepreneurs continue to embody the promise of America. Enough is 
enough. More taxation, regulation, and litigation will not create more 
jobs in this country.
  America is certainly at a crossroads. We have an opportunity here, 
and House Republicans are committed to taking every possible step to 
spur job creation and get our economy back on track so that Americans 
can do what they do best, that is, create and innovate and lead.
  I again thank the gentleman from Arkansas.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Thank you to the gentlelady from Alabama.
  You know, when I think about where we are in this country in terms of 
unemployment and I think about what we can do to encourage job 
creation, it's clear to me that we can fix this problem. This is 
something that is possible.
  Sometimes I feel like this administration's solution to the 
unemployment problem is to go around and beg the private sector to 
invest, to beg the private sector to create jobs. That doesn't work.
  There's a reason that folks in the private sector who have money to 
invest are not investing. They're sitting on the sidelines. Why? Well, 
it's a lot like investing in your own family situation. You want to be 
careful with your money. You've got a certain amount of money to 
invest. You want to invest it in something that's safe. You want to 
invest it in something where there's certainty. You certainly don't 
want to take this money that you have, this limited amount of money, 
and just gamble it on something risky. You want to make sure that what 
you're putting your money into is going to pay dividends.
  And so what you have is you have a lot of businesses in this country 
who have money to invest but they're uncertain. We've heard that word 
``uncertainty'' tonight. Well, it is not just a buzzword. It's a fact. 
When businesses don't know what's going to happen, job creators, when 
they don't know what's going to happen, they hold on to that money and 
they say, Well, I better wait; I better wait until I know how things, 
with more certainty, how things are going to shake out.
  There's certainly always going to be some sort of uncertainty. Are 
the crops going to get rain? Well, that's not something we have control 
over. But some types of certainty and uncertainty we do have a control 
over, and it directly relates to policy.
  Mr. GARDNER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GRIFFIN from Arkansas. I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

                              {time}  2010

  Mr. GARDNER. A group of us had the opportunity today to discuss with 
one of the Nation's leading economists job creation and what's 
happening to our businesses around the country. And he made the 
observation, he said, You know, there are a lot of businesses--exactly 
what you had said--there are a lot of businesses out there that have 
money on their rolls, but they're not investing into our economy 
because of what he called and used the term ``government activism,'' 
policies that relate to government activism. I said, What do you mean 
by government activism? I am assuming you are not talking about 
somebody going out from government with a picket sign. And he said, No, 
no, no. Government activism in terms of the policies that they are 
pursuing that result in uncertainty, whether it's a regulatory approach 
that is an activist approach that takes away the certainty business has 
for the tax structure, for business environment regulations. And the 
conversation you had was, If we could bring back certainty, if we could 
get this country back to a point where businesses know what's ahead 
tomorrow, they know what's ahead next year, then they can plan, and 
they won't be afraid to invest that money. They'll start creating jobs 
now. That's one of the Nation's leading economists who said exactly 
what my colleague from Arkansas is saying tonight.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. And I think the debt is directly related to 
the issue of certainty or uncertainty. If you are an investor and you 
want to build a new plant, create a new business, do something that 
would result in job creation, whether you are from outside this country 
or here in the United States, you are thinking about investing, you 
look at the nervousness in the market, you look at the debt that we 
have, you think about the housing collapse in September 2008, and you 
sort of think to yourself, You know, this debt makes me nervous. I'm 
not sure where this is going. And they look and say, Is the government 
of the United States, led by the President, are they going to get their 
fiscal house in order so that if I invest, it's a safe bet? So if I 
invest, I can be certain that I'm investing in a country where the 
government has got their act together? Or am I looking to invest in a 
country that's going to just continue to raise that debt ceiling, see 
no limit?
  I actually was in the Judiciary Committee a couple of weeks ago, and 
one of my colleagues on the other side made the argument that we just 
haven't spent enough money. If we only would spend another trillion or 
so, we might have some economic activity. I couldn't believe what I was 
hearing. And I said to myself, How high does unemployment have to go? 
How high does the debt have to go before we realize that we've got to 
get the spending under control?
  Ms. HERRERA BEUTLER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I yield to the gentlelady from Washington.
  Ms. HERRERA BEUTLER. I was thinking through your comments here. And 
the gentleman from Colorado was talking about the uncertainty in 
investment. Why would you invest when you saw someone just burning 
through cash? You know, there's another reason that people wouldn't 
invest, and I think of a company in my district, Longview Fibre.
  In southwest Washington, we have tremendous resources in our timber, 
sawmills, Holden paper companies, just tremendous renewable resources. 
And one of those energy sources that people have seemed to research is 
the ability to, through biomass, create energy. This is a green source 
of energy.
  Let's talk about what uncertainty can do to a business. So in the 
last couple of years, the EPA has signaled--and then pulled back and 
then signaled--that they're not going to count biomass as green. So a 
company takes considerable time, energy, effort, and resources to put 
in play a biomass facility. And then the EPA steps in and says, Oh, 
time out, it doesn't matter how much money you have invested, it 
doesn't matter how much time and resources you have invested, we don't 
think that is going to count--and puts everything on hold.
  Well, the EPA decided to stay its ruling for a little bit, meaning 
they're not really sure whether biomass is green or not. In an 
environment like that, what company would take the time and the energy 
and the resources to create a biomass facility? And for a moment 
there--let me explain. Biomass isn't chipping whole, new, old-growth 
trees--I guess that would be old trees. It's chips. It's the waste. 
It's the bark. It's actually fully using the resource of timber, right? 
It's properly managing that resource. But the EPA--actually, what I 
think it is is some bureaucrat in

[[Page H4072]]

the central planning office somewhere here in Washington, D.C., has 
said, Ah, we don't understand that. We think you are going to cut all 
your trees down. We're just going to go ahead and tie your hands. It 
ties up resources, capital, and jobs.

  Longview Fibre is in Cowlitz County. Cowlitz County is upwards in 
double-digit unemployment. These are good-paying, family wage jobs. 
This uncertainty is killing us. You know, another thing you mentioned--
actually, I think it was the gentleman from Colorado who talked a 
little bit about business is not hiring and why.
  I'm a member of the Small Business Committee. And through testimony, 
I think it was about 2 weeks ago, we had a whole panel on--it had to do 
with health information technology. But interestingly, the Gallup 
organization was represented there, and they do nightly surveys. On 
some of the questions that they had asked, it showed small businesses, 
that small business owners were not hiring to capacity. In fact, there 
was about 40 percent more they could hire. So existing businesses could 
hire up to 40 percent more people if they weren't doing it. So, 
naturally, we asked ``Why?'' in the answer. Shoot, they didn't have the 
certainty to know whether or not they were going to have any kind of 
cash flow, or if they could make payroll if they did it. You know what 
was on the top of that list up there? Health care. Health care costs.
  Our small business owners continue to be targeted by government-run 
health care schemes. And that's what they are. Because if we want to 
talk health care, we can talk health care. We can talk compromise in 
health care because that's a passion of mine. But the schemes that were 
passed target, unfairly, these small businesses. Now some are getting 
waivers. Some are not getting waivers. Shoot, why in the world would 
you hire more employees if you didn't know whether you are going to be 
targeted or not targeted? That's uncertainty, and it's got to stop.
  It's time that we put people before politics. We think of the 
families who are at the pump, the moms who are trying to make ends 
meet, balance the checkbook, go get groceries, pick up the kids from 
school, make health care appointments. It's time we put them first, not 
agendas, not ideas. It's time we put people before politics, and that's 
exactly what we have been doing and that's what we are going to 
continue to fight for here on this House floor.
  Mrs. ROBY. To add to that, again, the district work weeks, this new 
schedule that we have, which affords all of us more time with our 
constituents, which is so important for transparency and accountability 
to the people who elected us to be here, who we are making decisions 
for on their behalf, representing their interests. I can't tell you how 
many times in these meetings--just what you are saying--in preparation 
for full implementation of this health care law, we are seeing 
businesses sit around conference tables, throwing their hands up, 
having to spend lots and lots of dollars that could go toward creation 
of jobs. But they're spending all this money just trying to figure out 
how this law is going to affect them and their bottom line. And it is a 
huge travesty. And I'm sure that each of you have had similar 
situations. But we know that there are free-market solutions to driving 
down the cost of health care in this country, and that law does nothing 
to do that, to increase competition and to drive down cost. But yet 
what we do see every time we sit down at the table with these business 
owners is, we see how the costs associated with implementing the law is 
killing them.
  So I just wanted to add that to the table. And on behalf of the folks 
in Alabama that I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to be here to 
represent, I can't say it strong enough and loud enough about the plan 
that we have here in the majority of the House to do all that we can to 
untie the hands of our business owners so that we can get this country 
back on track.

                              {time}  2020

  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Thank you. You make some good points about 
health care. And one of the things that we have pursued here in the 
House is medical liability reform. And when we were meeting with the 
President at the White House, a little over a week ago, someone raised 
the issue of medical liability reform. He said, well, I'm for that. I'm 
for that.
  It's one thing to say you're for it. It's another thing to advocate 
for this sort of legislation. We're going to send it over to the Senate 
from here in the House, and we need the President to get engaged on 
this issue.
  Medical liability reform is one of many solutions, market-based 
solutions, that can help reduce the health care costs. And it's not 
enough for the President to say, well, I'm for that.
  The President said in the State of the Union on the issue of business 
taxes, he understands that we're at a competitive disadvantage. He says 
he does. He says he would like to see us be more competitive with 
regard to business taxes. But no action, nothing, no leadership on the 
issue of business taxes.
  If he wants to talk about competitiveness, let's talk about 
competitiveness. Let's talk about having a tax structure that welcomes 
job creators, not repels them.
  If you want to talk about competitiveness, let's talk about trade 
agreements. On January 27 of 2010, President Obama said, ``If America 
sits on the sidelines while other nations sign trade deals, we will 
lose the opportunity to create jobs on our shores.''
  Mr. President, opportunity lost. We've been waiting. We've got three 
free trade agreements just sitting on the shelf, one with Colombia, one 
with Panama and one with South Korea. And the estimates are that these 
trade agreements, if they were implemented, would increase U.S. exports 
by more than $10 billion. I've got to think that $10 billion in 
increased exports would equal some jobs. But no action from the 
President.
  I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.
  Mr. GARDNER. I thank the gentleman from Arkansas. And I too have 
heard the President talk about his desire to increase trade and the 
exports of this country. In fact, I believe I've heard the statistic 
quoted, something to the effect that if we could increase trade in this 
Nation by exports by 1 percent, we'd create tens of thousands of jobs.
  We talk about what we're going to do to get this country moving 
forward again, how we're going to get this economy back, and there is a 
perfect example of what we can do, not only from my home State of 
Colorado, but for this country. The goods that we produce, to share 
them with the world, to make not just U.S. consumers, but world 
consumers of the excellence in manufacturing that this country used to 
be, can be, still ought to be and should be into the future.
  And so again, I think you talk about the opportunities that we have 
missed. The other night we came to the floor, and there was a group 
talking about make it in America. Well, you know what we need to make 
it in America? We need a business environment that fosters job growth. 
We need a tax policy that doesn't penalize people for choosing to work 
in the United States.
  To make it in America we need an energy policy that doesn't force 
people to pay $60, $70 every time they fill up a tank of gas just to 
get to work. To make it in America we need regulations that are pro-
business, not anti-business.
  To make it in America we need a government that actually represents 
the American working families, not just bureaucracy. That's what we 
need to make it in America. And when it comes to trade agreements, I 
believe that we can and we ought to make it in America, and we can sell 
it abroad.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. You make a good point. It's not just 
happenstance when a country has a good manufacturing base. You don't 
just happen to have job creation. It's a function of policies. It's a 
function of the policies that we adopt in the Congress, or that we 
don't adopt.
  For example, we haven't reformed our business taxes in years. While 
other countries are making themselves more competitive, we're sitting 
on our hands. It's not happenstance.
  I want to be so attractive in this country to job creators that 
manufacturers in other countries want to come here. I want 
manufacturers around the world to want to be in this country. And the 
manufacturers that we might have lost, I want them to say, hey,

[[Page H4073]]

they've changed their tune. I'm going back home. I want businesses, job 
creators around the world to say, that's the country where I want to 
create jobs because it's the best place to do business.
  And we, the policies that we adopt here, the regulations that the 
administration puts forth, it all has an impact. It's not happenstance. 
It's by design. So we need to make sure that we're doing the things 
here that encourage the private sector job growth.
  Ms. HERRERA BEUTLER. And I couldn't agree more. I was just sitting 
here reflecting on the number of people who come up and talk to me in 
my district in southwest Washington about how hard it is to find work, 
how hard it is to find a good paying family-wage job.
  I mentioned timber resources. In our neck of the woods we 
traditionally have had just a booming timber economy, resource-based 
economy; and a lot of those operations have either shut down or moved 
elsewhere to be more competitive.
  We've got to allow job growth. I mean, it sounds simple. It really 
does. You know, the last time our country had the amount of spending 
that we see happening right now was actually in the lead up to World 
War II. And I've talked a lot about cutting and reducing government 
overspending and government growth. It needs to be done. In the last 3 
years, the what we call discretionary spending, the money that has to 
be appropriated annually has increased by over 80 percent. Federal 
employment has increased by 10 percent in about that same time. So 
government spending has grown. And people are saying that the way to--
not ``people''--my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and the 
President are saying that the reason we have stagnant job opportunities 
is because we haven't spent enough.

  Well, I listed earlier the stimulus, the bailouts, the auto bailouts, 
the health care bill, all this spending that's taken place; and we're 
still where we are now. And people say, well, it happened during World 
War II; we spent a ton of money and then coming out of that we grew 
jobs. The difference, the big difference was coming out of World War 
II, the last time our debt to GDP ratio was near where it is now, the 
difference was, and the thing that saved us, was the immediate cuts. 
Right?
  We cut government spending back, but we grew jobs. We literally made 
things here in America. You know why? We had an environment that 
fostered job creation. We had an environment that cultivated 
entrepreneurs. We grew jobs here in America because we made things 
here. We produced things.
  Again, in southwest Washington we had a roaring timber industry that 
has all but shut down, and the sad thing is if you don't manage the 
health of a forest, it deteriorates. Some of these folks who are here 
in these bureaucratic offices in Washington, D.C. I swear have never 
stepped foot in a real forest. They think you just tie a big ribbon 
around it and don't let anybody in or out, and that's how we protect 
our environment. They're wrong. You see, they think that our 
environment and our economy are mutually exclusive.
  Man, that is such a low opinion of American researchers. That really 
must say that we don't think we can, our citizens, our people are 
intelligent enough to come up with new and innovative ways to both 
manage our timber and our timber economy and protect our environment.
  So what we have now is shut off stands of trees ripe for beetle 
infestation, disease or worse, fire as we enter the summer seasons with 
a lot of dry foliage and underbrush. You know, it sure would be great 
if the EPA would have allowed some of those companies I mentioned in my 
district to create their biomass facilities, because then we could 
create jobs because we'd have a biomass facility up and running. We 
would be taking the remnants of trees. We wouldn't be taking full 
trees, but chips and bark, and using those in the biomass facility so 
we are creating green energy. We're fully utilizing a renewable 
resource, and we're creating jobs.
  My goodness. That's a novel concept. We need to get there.

                              {time}  2030

  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I thank the gentlelady.
  I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.
  Mr. TIPTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I just came back from our work week. I traveled better than 1,500 
miles throughout Colorado. It was remarkable to me. At every one of our 
meetings, we found cities, counties, small businesspeople, talking 
about the opportunity to be able to get America back to work. But the 
problem, the obstacle that we are truly facing, it is not the American 
spirit but it is overregulation coming out of Washington, D.C. Rather 
than being the steppingstone, it has become a stumbling block, and we 
are going to be able to get this economy working and moving forward 
once again if we simply free up that American spirit.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman from Arkansas has 
expired.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

                          ____________________