[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 147 (Tuesday, October 4, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H6539-H6545]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              JOB CREATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. 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. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  I've been listening here on the floor today, and I heard some folks 
mention the need for action on the issue of jobs. I agree. Some of them 
said, hey, there hasn't been much action. There has been a lack of 
action, I think was the quote that I heard here on the floor earlier. 
I'd like to talk about that a little bit.
  There has been a lot of action on the issue of jobs in the House. 
When folks talk about the Congress, they sort of group the House and 
the Senate together. I understand that, but the House and the Senate 
are two separate bodies, and the leadership in the House and the 
leadership in the Senate have two different visions of where this 
country ought to go.
  As it relates to the House, there has been a lot of action. We've 
passed about 90 bills in the House this year. During that same 
timeframe, the Senate passed 20. A lot of those bills that we've passed 
here in the House directly relate to the issue of job creation and in 
helping our country get back on its feet.
  Many of us understand that government is not the key job creator in 
this country. The private sector creates jobs, and the government can 
make things better or make things worse for job creators. My hope is 
that we're working to make things better--to create an environment 
where the private sector can then flourish, can innovate, can advance, 
and create jobs.
  Now let's talk about the action here in the House.
  We've got a number of bills that we've passed that relate to job 
creation, bills that were then taken down to the other side of this 
building and given to the Senate. That's where they rest. They're just 
sitting there. A lot of us grew up in the seventies. We remember 
``Schoolhouse Rock.'' We remember that little bill sitting on Capitol 
Hill. That bill can't become a law unless it passes this House, the 
Senate, and then the President signs it. Well, that little bill was 
passed out of here. It's waiting on the Senate to do something about 
it, that little jobs bill, and there's a whole host of them down there 
with it. Let me mention a few of them.
  First and foremost, when we got here in January, we voted to repeal 
ObamaCare, the health care law that recently passed. Why did we do 
that? Because it is a source of angst, uncertainty, out-of-control 
government spending, and excessive regulation the likes of which this 
country has never seen before. We voted to repeal that on the first day 
of the first week back. The first week we got here we sent that over to 
the Senate, and they didn't pass it.
  We passed H.R. 872, the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act. No Senate 
action.
  We passed the Energy Tax Prevention Act to block some of the EPA's 
controversial excessive regulations. No action on that.
  We passed H. Res. 72, asking our House committees to inventory 
regulations and look for places we can trim them back, reform them and 
save. No action like that in the Senate.
  H.R. 1230, Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act, a bill, 
along with several others that we passed, to encourage energy 
exploration. No action in the Senate.
  The Putting the Gulf of Mexico Back to Work Act. No action in the 
Senate.
  Reversing President Obama's Offshore Moratorium Act. No action in the 
Senate.
  We can go on and on and on.
  One of those things that we passed here that the Senate hasn't passed 
is a budget--a fundamental document for managing one's finances. We 
passed one here. They haven't had a budget in the Senate for, I think, 
about 2 years now. For 888 days, no budget in the Senate.
  So we've done a lot here in the House. Congress as a whole hasn't 
acted on a lot of this stuff, but we've done our part, and we've sent 
it down to the other side of the building, to the Senate. We're waiting 
for action on many pieces of critical legislation that can help this 
country get back to job creation.

                              {time}  1520

  I would now like to yield to my friend from Illinois.
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. Thank you.
  This kind of reminds me of the story of the rogue cowboy. When you 
think of the rogue cowboy, you think of somebody, you know, sitting 
under the sun just taking it all in, doesn't really want to work with 
anybody.
  That reminds me of the Senate, taking it easy. They haven't taken a 
lot of votes this year; more interested in, I guess, getting paid and 
letting the bills stack up, and they don't need to work with anybody.
  But you know what we can do in that process? Let's blame one small 
lever of government. Let's blame the House Republicans. Let's blame 
them for the 9.1 percent unemployment. Let's do that. You know, that's 
what we can do. We don't actually have to govern.
  I mean, when you look at it, they've had control of the House of 
Representatives and the Senate since 2006 and the Presidency since 
2008, with the exception of a very brief period of time over the last 
year where Republicans have been blessed and fortunate enough to be in 
the majority in the House of Representatives. But yet this 
unemployment, according to them, is our fault.
  We need jobs in this country. In my district, the 11th Congressional 
District in Illinois, you have cities like Joliet, like Ottawa, like 
Bloomington. A lot of places have seen their manufacturing base 
disappear. They've seen it over the last 20 or 30 years. And what's 
been our reaction? Well, typically the knee-jerk reaction in 
Washington, DC, is that we have to have some kind of a program. We have 
to pass more spending.
  Well, if there's no jobs, I mean, obviously the problem, if there's 
no jobs, it's got to be because Washington, DC, hasn't done enough. And 
so we get in this perpetual cycle of let's spend more and spend more.
  I remember a couple of years ago, almost a trillion dollar stimulus 
was passed out of this House of Representatives, and I think by 
everybody's measure would agree that it was ineffective. I have not 
seen many people with a straight face argue that the stimulus was 
effective. Even the Commander in Chief, the President himself said, 
well, you know, it wasn't quite as shovel ready as we expected.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Reclaiming my time, I just want to point out 
that in Arkansas the President predicted that the stimulus would create 
30,000 jobs. I think, in the end, the government funded about 4,800 
jobs at a cost of around $300,000 per job.
  Now, if someone would've just given me the checkbook, I could have 
created more jobs writing people checks and could have saved people all 
the work. I mean, the idea that you create jobs at $300,000 a job is 
just unbelievable.

[[Page H6540]]

  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. That's a great point. What's amazing to me 
is you put out those very staggering numbers, and every American should 
just be horrified at those numbers, but I've actually heard Members of 
the other side of the aisle actually say the stimulus wasn't big 
enough. I think most people listening today have heard that: The 
stimulus just wasn't big enough. Okay, well, I disagree, but fine.
  Theoretically, let's say it wasn't big enough. So what do we need, 
another $2 trillion, $3 trillion stimulus, a gajillion dollar stimulus, 
because then everybody can go back to work? But the President puts a 
$450 billion stimulus.
  The only argument I have heard that has any credence--and it 
doesn't--is that it wasn't big enough. That's why it didn't create 
jobs. So stimulus 2, which is smaller, has got to do what the large 
stimulus 1 never did. The insanity of the things I hear is staggering.
  We've got to get people back to work. That's what it really comes 
down to. I think everybody agrees about that.
  So we can work and say for 20 years we've been spending and spending 
and spending--$14 trillion obviously wasn't enough to get us out of 
this deficit--or we can do what the House Republicans have been 
promising the American people and following through on, which is to say 
let the American consumer and businessman breathe the clean air, the 
fresh air of freedom, the fresh air of capitalism, understanding that 
if somebody has a fear of hypodermic needles, you don't solve that fear 
by stabbing them with a bunch of hypodermic needles. So if we have a 
debt problem in this country, you don't solve it by spending more and 
more. You initially figure out a better way to deliver those solutions.
  Look, Federal Government isn't the answer. Everybody you are going to 
hear from tonight is going to tell you the Federal Government isn't the 
answer. In many cases, it's the problem. But the answer, the thing that 
has made our country great, the thing that has made us powerful is the 
people that live here, not the government that represents it. It's the 
people.
  So I think, as this discussion goes on tonight, I look forward to 
listening and being part of it. But, again, to talk about a jobs bill--
by the way, I don't want to say the words ``jobs bill'' again because, 
if it was a real jobs bill, I think that would be an appropriate title, 
but it's just stimulus 2.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I thank the gentleman from Illinois. It's 
stimulus, the sequel.
  I would just like to point out that you made a really good point. The 
government is not going to be the answer in terms of creating jobs. The 
government can help create an environment where the private sector can 
innovate, can grow, and can create jobs. We can assist by creating an 
environment in a country where businesses and job creators flourish, 
and that's what we want do.
  I yield now to the gentlelady from Alabama.
  Mrs. ROBY. Thank you so much. I appreciate your leadership here this 
afternoon giving us an opportunity to once again talk to the American 
people about jobs.
  As the weather gets cooler outside, I know in the State of Alabama 
there's several large fairs that are happening right now, and I love 
the fair. I love going to the fair. I love taking my children to the 
fair. I love the corn dogs, the elephant ears, the Tilt-A-Whirl, the 
go-carts. I love going to the fair, but I really love roller coasters.

  What I love about roller coasters is the anticipation, the tick, 
tick, tick as the carts reach the top of the hill; and every tick on 
that anticipation of unleashing the speed of that roller coaster, all 
of these job-creating bills that we've passed right here in this House 
of Representatives. And yet it's like being on a roller coaster and 
you've reached the very top and it shuts down. Because every piece of 
legislation that we've passed in order to unleash the private sector's 
speed and momentum to get this economy back on track is dead in the 
water, dead on arrival in the Senate.
  We can't take it anymore. I've just gotten back from my district, 
like all of you have, and I've traveled around and I've looked into the 
eyes of the people who want to create these jobs. Our American job 
creators are sitting on almost $2 trillion that they could be 
reinvesting in the private sector. Yet, as I have mentioned on this 
floor time and time again, I have visited places that have told me that 
every dollar in extra capital that they have they are having to 
reinvest back into their company in order to comply with EPA 
regulations. This is unconscionable. This is unconscionable at a time 
when our country is so desperate for good-paying jobs and people have 
given up even looking for those jobs.
  I want to tell you real quickly about a recent trip that I took to 
International Paper in Prattville, Alabama, and I had the opportunity 
to sit down with them and talk specifically about a bill that we have 
in front of us on the floor today, and that's the Boiler MACT bill, and 
the thousands and thousands of dollars and millions of dollars all 
across this country and all the jobs that are going to be lost if this 
rule is implemented. They just can't comply. They have spent so many 
dollars already to already comply with the regulations in place, and 
this will essentially shut them down.
  This is just one more example of what this Congress is trying to do 
in order to allow the private sector to create jobs. All of us make 
site visits to companies and to manufacturing sites throughout our 
districts, and all you have to do is see the empty space, the empty 
cubicles. This is real. This isn't just some pie-in-the-sky thing that 
we are just standing here on the floor talking about this. It's real. 
There are real people hurting, and we've got to get the government out 
of the way.
  I look forward to continuing this discussion with all of you this 
afternoon. But on behalf of Alabama's Second District, we'll keep 
fighting for the opportunity, and we have got it right here, just the 
tick, tick, tick on the roller coaster waiting for that free fall, but 
we've got to get Senate Democrats on board.

                              {time}  1530

  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I thank the gentlelady from Alabama.
  I would say, when I sit down and meet with constituents, whether it 
be here or back home in Little Rock, one of the complaints that I hear 
the most is that Federal Government continues to over-regulate, 
continues to burden us with regulations that are excessive, that just 
don't make sense, and they're implementing them without checking with 
the folks that they're going to most impact, or ignoring the folks that 
they will most impact.
  There are a number of agencies that are doing that. We hear a lot 
about the EPA, but it's not just the EPA. You can just go right down 
the list of Federal agencies and they're issuing new regulations, many 
of which are almost impossible to comply with.
  Today we voted on the concrete MACT and the boiler MACT legislation 
to help prohibit, to prohibit the EPA from implementing some of these 
harmful rules. And I can just tell you, talking to folks back in my 
district, these rules will have a specific impact on them. It will cost 
them millions of dollars to implement; and ultimately, it costs jobs.
  Mrs. ROBY. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I yield to the gentlelady from Alabama.
  Mrs. ROBY. Just to go back to what I was talking about with 
International Paper, the cost of implementing boiler MACT regulation 
when combined with the anticipated cost of implementing other pending 
air regulations would place at risk 36 mills, 20,541 pulp and paper 
mill jobs nationally; and this is approximately 18 percent of the 
primary pulp and paper industry workforce. The number of lost mills 
would rise to 79 if all air regulations are taken into account. The 
loss of jobs would rise to 87,299 if jobs and the supplier in 
downstream industries are figured into the equation. This would mean 
about $4 billion in reduced wages and some $1.3 billion in lost State, 
local, and Federal taxes. I just wanted to add to what you were 
pointing out.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. That's the real impact that these rules will 
have if they're implemented. I would like to say, before I yield to the 
gentleman from New York, these regulations continue. It's almost every 
week there's a new one. I don't think anyone here is against 
regulation. This is not an issue

[[Page H6541]]

of do we regulate or not. Of course we need regulations. We need 
commonsense regulations that protect Americans.
  What we're talking about are excessive regulations. What we're 
talking about is an unprecedented growth of regulations over the last 
few years that are stifling and crushing business.
  One thing I'll mention with regard to health care, businesses aren't 
just concerned about the regulations that exist. They're concerned 
about the regulations that are in the pipeline that they haven't seen 
yet because it adds uncertainty to doing business. So a business may 
have some money set aside that they want to invest and expand their 
factory and they want to hire new people, but they don't yet know what 
the impact of the recently passed health care law is going to be. So 
they put that money aside and they sit on it.
  I've had constituent after constituent tell me that if this health 
care law that recently passed is fully implemented, it will have a 
devastating impact on my business, and we will start paying an 
additional $100,000 or $200,000 or $300,000, or whatever the amount is, 
for that particular business. So they're putting money aside waiting to 
see what they'll have to spend to comply with this new law.
  The same situation with Dodd-Frank and a lot of the new financial 
regulations. There was a gentleman speaking earlier. He talked about 
small businesses needing access to credit. Well, let me tell you, the 
Dodd-Frank bill is part of the problem. If you really wanted to inspire 
confidence in job creators, the President ought to call a press 
conference today and say he's going to do everything he can to repeal 
his two big mistakes--ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank. That would give job 
creators a shot of confidence, and I guarantee you the markets would 
respond likewise.
  I now yield to the gentleman from New York.
  Mr. REED. I thank the gentleman from Arkansas for yielding and for 
setting up this leadership hour for us to have this important 
conversation.
  I would say to all of my colleagues, it doesn't take a whiz kid to 
figure out that we're on the wrong path in America. So how are we going 
to change it? I come to this Chamber always in an optimistic manner. I 
come to this Chamber with the energy and the commitment to make America 
better. And we're going to change that by changing the culture of 
Washington, D.C. I'm proud to be part of this freshman class: 87 House 
Republicans, 13, approximately, new Democratic faces on the other side 
of the aisle. So how are we going to change from that new class, 
develop a new breed of elected official that puts country and policy 
over politics?
  I can tell you that my colleagues that I have spent a tremendous 
amount of time with in the freshman class have always taken the 
approach that it is policy over politics, and I am pleased to be joined 
on the floor here today with a colleague, a Democratic colleague, 
joining us, a bunch of House Republican freshman Members, a fellow 
freshman Member from the Democratic side, who has had the courage to 
stand up and publicly stand with us to talk about what is the critical 
issue of this Congress, and that is creating an environment where the 
economy improves and people can be put back to work.
  It's about creating an environment that creates jobs. My colleague 
from Michigan, who I have developed a friendship with, is down here to 
join us to offer his ideas. Although we may not agree 100 percent on 
all of the ideas that he brings to the table, I still respect the man 
and I respect many of his ideas. And I respect that there are going to 
be areas where we will find common ground, that we can come together 
and move the ball forward so America will see its best and brightest 
days again ahead of us.
  One of the common grounds that I know that's coming down the pipeline 
next week is the free-trade agreements. There's vast bipartisan support 
for those free-trade agreements which would equate up to 250,000 new 
jobs essentially immediately within the next 12 months. That type of 
economic opportunity is what we should be focusing on and on which we 
focus on here in the House as a freshman class, pushing forward 
policies and agendas that put the country first rather than our 
reelection efforts and our political ambitions ahead of country and 
policy.

  One of the other things that we have to change in Washington, D.C., 
and I know my colleagues on both sides here today are firmly committed 
to, we have to look at this from a long-term comprehensive point of 
view. When you've got the Senate that hasn't passed a budget in 888 
days, any businessman in America will tell you that how you run an 
operation, you at least have to have a vision, you have to have a 
strategy; and in government that document that sets the vision and the 
policy and the guiding principles of how we should operate is a budget. 
It's a fundamental thing that we do. So, again, the Senate needs to 
join us, lock arms with this freshman class and say we're going to put 
country and policy over politics, and jump.
  That's why I have so much respect for my colleague from Michigan 
coming down and joining us here today, and if my colleague from 
Arkansas will yield him time to offer his insights into this debate. 
But, again, it's a commonsense approach to governing: do the job, lay 
forth the vision in a budget, work together to find common ground, and 
create an environment in America where people can go back to work and 
take care of their families for generations to come. It's only through 
that type of commonsense approach that I believe that we will move this 
ball down the field the way that it needs to, and I'm proud to join my 
colleagues.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I thank the gentleman from New York. I will 
in a minute yield some time to the gentleman from Michigan, but I want 
to first yield some time to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. DUFFY. I appreciate the gentleman from Arkansas for yielding.
  Just quickly, we have heard a lot about the President's jobs bill, 
and I think everyone in this House agrees that this country needs more 
economic growth and it needs more jobs. I'm from Wisconsin, and a lot 
of folks in Wisconsin and across the country want to see the folks in 
Washington and in Madison start to get along, try to find points of 
agreement instead of points of disagreement.
  So the President came up with this jobs bill. I said, you know, Mr. 
President, I can agree with you that we need tax reform. I can agree 
with you that we need regulatory reform. And I can also agree that we 
should probably extend the payroll tax holiday.

                              {time}  1540

  But the President has gone a step further, and he wants to have a 
second stimulus. He wants to spend nearly half a trillion dollars 
because he believes more government spending will lead to economic 
growth, prosperity, wealth, and sustainable jobs. And we tried that to 
the tune of a trillion dollars. That doesn't work. But when the 
President talks about tax reform right after he gives that speech, a 
week later he comes out and says, my idea of tax reform is to raise 
taxes.
  This doesn't make sense. Do you think that you help the job seeker by 
raising taxes on the job creator? He talks about reforming regulation. 
But all we see is more and more regulations coming from the agencies 
and the White House. And what that does is it makes America less 
competitive. It's pretty easy to see that we are a global economy; and 
in this country, we pay our employees more. I think we can do that 
because American workers are harder working, they're more productive, 
and they're smarter. But on top of that, our businesses have far more 
mandates, far more regulations, far more red tape; and now they're 
going to pay far more taxes.
  With that kind of environment, how do we expect our businesses, our 
manufacturers to compete on this global scale? Sometimes people in 
Washington sit back and they scratch their head and they say, why are 
businesses leaving? Well, Washington has made it uncompetitive for 
American industry and American small manufacturers to compete, succeed, 
win, and put our hardworking families back to work.
  I come from northern Wisconsin. You may not know this, but I grew up 
doing lumberjack sports. That's chop, saw, logroll, and tree climbing, 
skills of the old-time lumberjack. That's how our whole region was 
built. Paper is still a

[[Page H6542]]

huge industry where I come from, and the EPA was coming out with a 
Boiler MACT regulation. If that were to have gone through, that would 
have killed Wisconsin paper, it would have rippled throughout our whole 
economy, and it would have killed thousands of jobs in our community.
  Just the threat of Boiler MACT has sent ripples through the economy. 
If you look at our loggers--this isn't small business, this is big 
business. They have big loans and big pieces of equipment, and they 
can't access the national forest. There are policies coming from this 
town that make it so much harder for our small businesses to succeed, 
compete, grow, and hire our hardworking people.
  We have to switch around. I'm not a farmer. I said I was a 
lumberjack, but I do have a garden. And I think the economy is much 
like a garden. When you garden, you have to have good seed and good 
soil. Right? And you have to have sun and water. If you put that all 
together, it's amazing, your plants will grow. Once in a while, you can 
throw a little Miracle-Gro on them, and they grow a little more. The 
economy is no different. You can't have no sun and bad soil and just 
pour Miracle-Gro and expect the plant to grow. It doesn't work that 
way. We need to set the environment for expansion and growth and 
American competitiveness. That's not happening right now. We need to 
change these policies.
  So look at what we've done in the House. In this House, those are the 
bills we've passed. We've passed bill after bill after bill that makes 
the environment more competitive for American industry, which means we 
would have more jobs in America, and they die in the Senate. And I 
think it's almost fruit loop legislation in the Senate, which is no 
legislation.
  Until we start to turn this process around, start to focus on points 
of agreement that will turn the economy around and put our people back 
to work, I think you're going to see a continued discontent of people 
in this country with this town.
  So with that, Mr. Griffin, I'm proud to be here with this freshman 
class doing the hard work in a bipartisan way, trying to change the 
environment to put our families back to work.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Reclaiming my time, what you have just 
described is the fact that we can't mandate companies to come back to 
the United States. We can't mandate companies to invest in the United 
States. We have to attract them. We have to create an environment where 
they want to do business, and we've got to create an environment where 
they want to invest. We want people to look at the United States and 
say, that's the only place in the world to do business, that's where I 
want to create jobs, that's where I want to innovate, and that's where 
I want to invest. And as you say, a lot of the rules that we've set up 
have run folks off. So they're creating jobs, but they're creating them 
somewhere else.
  I yield to the gentlelady from Alabama.
  Mrs. ROBY. I want to interject quickly. You talked about the forest 
products industry. And since 2006, it's already lost 31 percent of its 
workforce. That's nearly 400,000 high-paying jobs located in mainly 
small, rural communities. And without passing this Boiler MACT 
legislation, the situation is only going to become worse. So I just 
wanted to throw that in there.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I would like to now yield quickly to our 
friend from the other side of the aisle who has joined us, the 
gentleman from Michigan.
  Mr. CLARKE of Michigan. I want to thank the gentleman from Arkansas 
for yielding to me to address this body and also to my good friend, the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Reed), for inviting me to be here.
  As you know, I'm a Democrat. I'm currently vice president of the 
Democratic freshman class. And yet we may have our differences, but the 
people that we represent in this great country are all different. 
That's what makes our country so strong and so great is that we 
attracted people from all around the world with their different talents 
and perspectives. But they all have the opportunity to responsibly 
express themselves and leverage their talents to build one of the 
greatest countries our civilization has ever known.
  One thing I do know that we can agree on is that the role of this 
Congress is to create jobs and to help improve the business climate to 
keep and attract the investment that creates jobs. I want to give you 
an example of the place that I was born and raised in and that I 
currently live in, the city of Detroit. That metropolitan area has lost 
more jobs than any other metropolitan area in the last 10 years. Home 
foreclosures came through, hit our city like a wave and destroyed 
blocks and blocks of formerly viable neighborhoods. It's been 
heartbreaking for me to see what's happened not only to the city but to 
the people that I love, many of whom have had to leave the city for the 
suburbs. They've moved out of State. Many have just lost hope 
altogether.

  I want to get to the point. What businesses have told me on what they 
need to stay in the city and what businesses would need to locate in 
the city is the same things that Detroit families want: simple, basic 
things--safe neighborhoods, good schools, a low cost of living and 
doing business.
  So think about it: if we could provide better public safety for 
folks, if we could improve the schools and cut those high municipal 
taxes in Detroit, I know that we could keep businesses and attract new 
jobs. And here's why. Even though this city has been very hard hit 
economically, we've got the best manufacturing know-how in the country. 
We've got a great trained workforce. If we're able to hire more police 
officers, hire better teachers, keep our schools open longer, cut our 
property taxes by eliminating our daunting municipal and school debt 
and eliminate our city income tax on residents and nonresidents, we 
could bring jobs back to Detroit. And not only that, we could create 
jobs for this country.
  Now all that sounds like it costs money. It does cost money. But 
here's what I'm proposing. It's not new money. Let's just use existing 
tax revenue that Detroit businesses and Detroit individuals pay right 
now. We put that money in trust on a pilot basis to see how it works. 
And we would say, if the city wants to benefit from those tax dollars, 
it's got to pay off its debt entirely, the city and the school 
district, and it's got to eliminate that uncompetitive city income tax. 
And then the rest of the money can only be invested in those core areas 
that will improve the business climate of that city, like making the 
streets safer, the schools better and rebuilding those crumbling roads 
and water systems. That's what we can do.
  I appreciate the gentleman from Arkansas for yielding to me.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Thank you for joining us here on the floor 
today. We appreciate it very much.
  I now yield to the gentleman from Colorado.
  Mr. GARDNER. I thank the gentleman from Arkansas and the gentleman 
from Michigan for his words. We all may disagree how to get there, but 
we do want to be sure that the final goal is reached, and that's a 
stronger, better America, an America that has a strong economy that's 
putting people back to work.

                              {time}  1550

  This is the 31st straight month where unemployment has exceeded 8 
percent. It's got to end. It's got to stop. This country needs to get 
an economy that's back on track.
  In August, I spent a lot of time visiting with businesses around my 
district in eastern and northern Colorado, and one of the initiatives 
that we launched was an initiative called the ``One More Job'' 
initiative. The idea was to learn from job creators, those people who 
are on the front lines of our economy, what it takes for them to create 
another job, what would help their business grow and expand to the 
point where they could hire somebody else so that their customers are 
returning, so that they're able to sell their goods, their products, 
their services so that that business could expand and grow again; 
because, in Colorado, if just 10 percent of businesses in Colorado 
hired one person, if just 10 percent of Colorado businesses hired one 
person, we would create 60,000 jobs in the State of Colorado alone, in 
my home State, 60,000 jobs. That's not by telling businesses that they 
have to hire people. That's not by telling people that

[[Page H6543]]

they've got to do X, Y, or Z. But it's saying, all right, if we can get 
this economy growing again, what is it that would allow you to expand? 
And so I'm excited to share with the Congress, my colleagues, ideas 
that job creators in Colorado have about what it would take to get 
their businesses hiring again.
  An independent consultant and business owner had this to say in 
response to our ``One More Job'' initiative:
  ``As a startup consultant and owner of my own business, I see the 
day-to-day regulatory burdens and uncertainties that many employers, 
both small and large, face. It seems to me that small businesses, 
including high-tech startups, are operating on the edge of knowing. 
They operate month to month or even day to day only to find out that a 
government fee or regulation or tax threatens to close their doors.''
  We have a kerfuffle every day on this floor about what it will take 
to move this economy forward, about what it's going to take to start 
creating jobs again. Let's listen to a car dealer. Tourism. Many jobs 
here. Build a strategy of promoting the State's beauty on a consistent 
basis. I'm glad to say that last night this body, the House of 
Representatives, passed a bill to increase the opportunity for tourism 
in Colorado around our ski resorts, our ski slopes in Colorado, the 
opportunity to not just generate jobs during the ski season itself, but 
to allow off-season uses, multiple seasons of use, zip lines, alpine 
slides, creating jobs in tourism in Colorado. This body passed that 
bill last night. I hope the Senate will pass it soon so that we can 
start creating jobs.
  When I hear from my colleagues around Washington, D.C., around the 
country saying that the House of Representatives hasn't passed a jobs 
bill, we passed the Jobs and Energy Permitting Act. That would create 
54,000 jobs. Last night, we passed a bill that would add to tourism 
jobs in Colorado, across the State, across the country. And so we are 
passing these bills. They need to move through the Senate. They need to 
be signed by the President.
  The fact is we've got a lot of work to be done, and I thank the 
gentleman from Arkansas for allowing us to be here today to share that 
message.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I yield to the gentlelady from Alabama.
  Mrs. ROBY. The only other thing that I would have to offer is to say 
that, as we move forward in the coming months and weeks, we've got to 
find common ground, but we do not have to forfeit our principles in 
doing so. We stand by the things that conservatives stand by. It's a 
three-legged stool: We're fiscally responsible, we're socially 
conservative, and we are pro-military, pro-defense. And we can still 
stand on that stool but yet continue to seek opportunities to find 
common ground.
  The problem is that the Senate is not even having this conversation. 
We watched 2 weeks ago as they tabled the continuing resolution that we 
passed in the House, meaning they're not even going to take an up-or-
down vote on this, and ultimately passed something much different.
  We are asking our friends on the other side of the aisle in the 
Senate and the White House to have a conversation with us. We have 
passed all of these bills that will lift the heavy hand of government 
off of the very job creators in this country; and we just want an 
opportunity to debate and then find where we do share that common 
ground, again, without ever compromising our core conservative 
principles.
  Thank you again to the gentleman from Arkansas. I really appreciate 
the opportunity to spend this hour with you.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I would like to say a few things, if I 
could, about the President's so-called jobs bill.
  We've heard about the desire for bipartisanship. We've heard about 
the desire to work together and find common ground. Well, not too long 
ago, the President visited us here in the House. He spoke from the 
podium and he talked about his new jobs bill. Well, he didn't talk 
about finding common ground. He didn't really talk about meeting us 
halfway, finding areas we could agree on. He just said, Pass my bill; 
pass it as it is. Then he ran around the country saying, Pass my bill; 
pass it as it is. Well, at that time there wasn't even a bill here in 
the House to pass. And when we finally did get the text of it, we saw 
that it certainly didn't reflect bipartisan agreement, certainly didn't 
reflect meeting halfway. It was stimulus 2, stimulus the sequel, and we 
know how ineffective the first stimulus was.
  I'm here to work with other folks, find areas where we can agree and 
move forward. But there hasn't been a shortage of bills and legislation 
passed in this House. As we talked about earlier, we've passed bill 
after bill after bill that will help create an environment in this 
country where the private sector will want to do business and grow 
jobs.
  When the President's bill finally got here, the so-called jobs plan, 
we found out there are not even enough Democrats to pass it in the 
Senate. I see just a few minutes ago the Republican leader in the 
Senate wanted to have an immediate vote on the President's jobs bill, 
and he has been blocked. He has been blocked by the Democrat majority 
leader in the Senate. He doesn't want to allow a vote on the 
President's jobs bill. I suspect that has something to do with the fact 
that most of the Democrats over there aren't going to vote for it 
either. They didn't just get here. They were around when the last 
stimulus passed and they realize how ineffective it was. And so the 
President can't even convince his own party to support his so-called 
jobs bill.
  I think at the end of the day we can agree here that we want to pass 
legislation that will help the private sector grow and create jobs, no 
question. No question. We've passed a number of those here, and we're 
willing to work on more. What we need is the Senate to actually take up 
some of the stuff that we've passed, because I'll just say this: I've 
talked to a lot of job creators in the Second Congressional District of 
Arkansas, which is basically central Arkansas, with Little Rock at the 
core, and a lot of them, they have money to invest and expand and 
create jobs, but they're holding on to it. Why? Because they're 
uncertain about the future. They don't have confidence in the direction 
of this country. They're worried.
  So businesses, job creators do what families do. They hold tightly to 
their money, save up, hoping that things will get better, hoping that 
they will gain some confidence in the direction of the country so that 
they can then spend that money to expand a plant and hire more people 
and what have you.
  So what makes them uncertain? What makes them worried? Well, what I 
hear is overregulation, the need for tax reform so that we can be 
competitive with other countries, the health care bill that passed last 
year. That's got a bunch of folks worried because they don't know what 
the impact is going to be. The Dodd-Frank bill is absolutely killing 
our small town community banks that are a critical source of credit for 
small businesses and families. They're worried to death. All of this 
stuff. And let's not leave out the debt.
  People are concerned about the debt because the national debt affects 
the markets. It affects interest rates. It affects the value of our 
currency. And folks see what's going on in Europe and they say, man, if 
we don't get this under control, we're next.

                              {time}  1600

  All of that, all of those different concerns, those worries, add to 
the uncertainty.
  I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.
  Mr. GARDNER. I thank the gentleman from Arkansas.
  And to your point, what you are talking about, the direct 
consequences that legislation and regulation is having on job creators 
throughout the United States. In another email that I got from a 
business owner in Longmont, Colorado, he makes comments about how the 
Dodd-Frank bill is affecting his business. And he ends his comments 
with this, ``Right now, Dodd-Frank appears to have completely killed my 
business.''
  We dealt earlier today and we will continue to deal with the Cement 
MACT rule that talks about what we're going to do to basic 
manufacturing elements in our country when it comes to cement. If we 
are going to pave the road to a better economy, we'd better

[[Page H6544]]

not do it without cement because this government is about to say, No 
more cement in this country.
  So I thank the gentleman from Arkansas for his passion for job 
creators in this country.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I think you were there yesterday when we had 
a visit from some folks in the cement/concrete industry. I was taught 
yesterday the difference between cement and concrete. Cement is what we 
use to create concrete. And he sat there, and he said, Look, I've got a 
lot of employees. I want to hire more. I want to grow. But this 
regulation, this Cement MACT regulation is going to kill a lot of our 
businesses because it's going to set a standard way beyond the European 
standard, and it's going to set a regulatory standard that our 
businesses cannot meet no matter how much they spend. I think he 
mentioned that one company had spent $20 million trying to comply, 
trying to tighten up their operations to meet some of these 
regulations. He even said, This regulation is so stringent, you can't 
even measure what the EPA is trying to achieve. It's beyond our ability 
to measure.
  It's not that these guys are against regulations. He said in our 
meeting, We've been regulated for years. We're going to continue to be 
regulated, and we're cool with that. We get that. We understand that. 
But this type of regulation will put us out of business, and the only 
people making cement will be elsewhere. He said, The cement business is 
growing big time in China, and to compete, we've got to have 
commonsense regulation.
  I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.
  Mr. GARDNER. I think in that same conversation we talked about an 
editorial or an op-ed piece that was written by Charles Schwab, a very 
well respected voice when it comes to the economy in this country. In 
The Wall Street Journal editorial, it said basically this, a quote from 
Charles Schwab, What we can do and absolutely must is knock down all 
hurdles that create disincentives for investment in business. And 
that's exactly what you were talking about in terms of making sure 
businesses have the ability to grow and have the government getting out 
of the way.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I yield now to the gentleman from New York.
  Mr. REED. I thank the gentleman from Arkansas. And I simply wanted to 
end this conversation with, as I get ready to leave and as our 
colleague from Kansas has joined us--I think the gentlelady from 
Alabama said it best. We came here as a new breed of elected official, 
part of this freshman class. We are not here to compromise our 
principles, but we're here to govern responsibly.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Get things done.
  Mr. REED. Get things done. And we can do that. That's why I was so 
pleased that our colleague from Michigan joined us today. Even though 
we may disagree on many things, there is common ground there. He 
recognized that lower taxes creates a business climate upon which 
entrepreneurs can put people back to work. We're all trying to achieve 
the same goal. Now it's time to have the Senate and the President 
engage with the American people in an open and honest fashion and deal 
with these issues once and for all. Because if we continue to play the 
politics of yesterday, then America's brightest days are behind her. 
And to me, that is unacceptable. And I know to all my colleagues here 
today, that is also unacceptable to them.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I appreciate it.
  I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.
  Mr. DUFFY. Thank you.
  I think we all come to this House in an effort to grow the economy 
and make sure we create policies that are going to help create jobs. We 
don't care if it's a Republican or a Democrat idea. We just want ideas 
that are going to work. So the partisanship goes away. It's ideas that 
put our families back to work.
  I want to talk about taxes though, quickly, because I think there has 
been an engagement in class warfare. And I know the President, he talks 
about taxing millionaires and billionaires, corporate jet owners, and 
big oil companies. I don't have those people, really, in my district. I 
come from small-town America. And he talks about taxing those people. 
But what he leaves out is, he's here to tax the small businessman, the 
small manufacturer, the people who are making $200,000 to $250,000 a 
year. Those are the businessmen and -women in my community that own the 
small manufacturing shops that employ 10 people to 100 people. Those 
are the people that are looking for access to capital to grow their 
businesses that are going to put our hardworking families back to work. 
And those are the people that are going to pay the brunt of these tax 
increases that the President is talking about. So, you know what? The 
billionaires, I don't care. But I do care about the job creators in my 
community, in the district that I represent that are going to be hit by 
his proposed tax increases.
  We all come to this House floor and we talk about debt reduction and 
job growth. There is a simple point I want to make here. If you look 
back at 1955, the top tax rate was around 90 percent. In the Reagan 
years, it was around 25 percent. From 90 to 25 percent, a great span of 
tax rates. What's unique is that no matter what the tax rate is, the 
Federal Government continuously brings in about 19 to 20 percent of 
revenue, as it relates to the size of the economy or GDP. Tax rate 
increases don't actually bring in more revenue. But if you want to look 
at what brings in more revenue to the Federal coffers it's economic 
growth. When GDP grows, so too does revenue to the Federal coffers, and 
that's because more people are going to work, which means more people 
are paying taxes. So if we want to reduce our debt and put our people 
back to work, let's focus on policies that grow our economy. When we 
grow our economy, more money comes into the Federal coffers, and more 
people are working, supporting their families, and paying taxes. Those 
are the policies that we're advocating for here in this House.

  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I thank the gentleman.
  I yield to the gentleman from Kansas.
  Mr. YODER. I appreciate the gentleman from Arkansas yielding to me.
  I have been watching this debate as we discuss what are, to most 
people, commonsense American values. Hard work, a free enterprise 
system, and opportunity for all, the American system we all believe in 
that made our country so great, one of the most prosperous nations in 
history, the most prosperous nation in the world. And we see it being 
threatened every day by policies that are coming out of Washington, DC. 
It is heartache for a lot of us because we see the very principles that 
built this country being threatened in this very process.
  So I'm pleased that the gentleman from Arkansas, the gentleman from 
Wisconsin, and the gentleman from Colorado are all arguing so 
passionately today for what they see as the future of the United States 
of America. I think one of the things that confuses a lot of folks back 
home is they see both sides of this debate on the floor saying, we're 
all for jobs. In fact, some people just come down and repeat it, Jobs, 
jobs, jobs. They say, Where are the jobs? And we just keep saying 
``jobs'' over and over again as if that's somehow miraculously going to 
get the private sector to start creating jobs again.
  They have come up with Washington solutions: borrowing and spending, 
creating jobs in Washington, DC. And what we know is that jobs aren't 
created here in Washington; they are created at home by small business 
owners. They are created through the free enterprise system. That's 
what made our country great.
  But I think the reason this debate is so challenging and the reason 
that we're having such a hard time getting the sides to agree and the 
two Chambers to agree and the President to agree is because we have 
different principles by which we are arguing this debate. I want to lay 
out a couple of very commonsense principles that I wish this Congress 
could agree to and this government could agree to so that we could move 
forward with job creation. The first one is, regulations don't create 
jobs. And if we could get this body to simply agree that regulations 
don't create jobs, we would be moving a long way down the path toward 
job creation.

[[Page H6545]]

  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. Can I interject that overregulation kills 
jobs?
  Mr. YODER. That's absolutely correct.
  So the regulations we're putting forward, not only do they not create 
jobs, but the gentleman from Arkansas is correct, they kill jobs. But 
yet I hear folks on this House floor, I see folks on the left, I see 
folks in the media arguing repeatedly that these regulations are 
actually good for business.
  In fact, Robert Reich argued earlier this year, he said, There's no 
necessary tradeoff between regulations and jobs. In fact, regulations 
that are designed well can generate innovation as companies compete to 
find the most efficient solutions. And innovations can lead to more 
jobs as they spawn new products and industries.

                              {time}  1610

  Regulations don't create innovation. Regulations don't create jobs. 
They are a job killer. This is a commonsense principle that I know a 
majority of Americans agree with, and it's one that is completely 
refuted day after day on this House floor. If we can come to an 
agreement that regulations don't create jobs, we can get somewhere.
  One of the reasons we don't, and you've been debating that this 
afternoon, is because they create additional burdens, additional hoops 
and additional challenges for small business owners that we're 
expecting to create two-thirds of the jobs in this country. In fact, 
just for fun, I brought down the stack of rules and regulations that 
have come out just in the last week. Every day, our small business 
owners have to deal with another one of these. Another one of these. 
Every day.
  There's last Tuesday; there's last Wednesday; there's last Thursday; 
there's last Friday--a pile of new rules and regulations for business 
owners. Even if they don't affect them, they still need to read them 
and follow them and hire folks to be able to respond to them. You talk 
to folks at home, you say, Are you creating jobs? Are you hiring new 
folks? They say, We are hiring a few folks in the compliance 
department. So yes, you might create a new job, but you're killing the 
jobs in innovation, entrepreneurship, and free enterprise.
  The other principle I want to leave with the folks here is that taxes 
don't create jobs. Taxing and spending doesn't create wealth. That is 
something that is in dispute on this House floor. If we could get an 
agreement with both parties that regulations don't create jobs and 
taxing and spending doesn't create jobs, we would be going a long way 
to solving this debate.
  So when folks at home wonder, Why are they arguing so much? Why can't 
they ever get anything done? Why aren't they moving forward? Because 
we're debating basic commonsense principles of the free enterprise 
system. And folks come down here and argue, Hey, these regulations are 
good for jobs. Hey, these new tax increases, that's good to create 
jobs. We're not going to get the free enterprise system going while 
we're smacking them down with new taxes and new regulations every day.
  I appreciate the gentleman from Arkansas, the gentleman from Colorado 
and others down here having this debate, because it is essential to 
what it means to be an American in this free enterprise system we all 
believe in.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I thank the gentleman.
  I want to use a little analogy and have a little fun here for a 
second.
  If you have two runners and they're lined up ready to race and one 
runner is simply going to run straight to the finish line and the other 
runner has to run through an obstacle course, who do you think is going 
to win? I think we would all agree that the one who's just going to run 
straight, not going to have to jump over anything, not going to have to 
swim or climb a rope or whatever, go through tires, just run straight 
to the finish line, that runner is going to have a big advantage over 
the other runner. The other runner is going to have to climb a rope, go 
over a wall, go through the tires, do all the things that you do in an 
obstacle course.
  The obstacle course, that's regulation. We need basic, fundamental 
regulation to keep us safe, keep our kids safe. I understand that. But 
that shows you what we're dealing with. You've got some countries who 
have little or no regulations, so their runners are just running down 
that track straight, unimpeded. We're putting up walls for ours, and 
then we wonder, Why can't we compete? Why aren't people investing? Why 
aren't they creating jobs in the private sector? Well, it has a lot to 
do with Washington, DC., my friend.
  I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.
  Mr. GARDNER. My colleague from Arkansas has a great point, that 
steeplechase economics will not work. It's when you remove the 
barriers, it's when you get things out of the way of this economy to 
grow, that's when we can create jobs. But if you're making people jump 
over walls and through water hazards, again, steeplechase economics 
have proven time and time again that they are failures.
  Our colleague from Kansas has shown a great visual aid of what every 
business owner in this country is facing when it comes to their own 
business, when it comes to creating jobs, when they have to decide 
where they're going to invest their hard-earned capital. They've got to 
go through pages and pages and volumes and volumes of tax codes and 
regulatory decisions and court decisions about what it is they can or 
cannot do in their business, making this economy so that it actually is 
unable to unleash the innovators and entrepreneurs.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I would make a quick point on that if I 
could.
  Some folks who want to invest, they've had the dream all of their 
life to create a small business, a little shop, maybe it's a bike shop, 
but to create that business. A lot of them are going to look at the 
metaphorical race, see the obstacles, and refuse to enter the race.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Canseco). The time of the gentleman has 
expired.
  Mr. GRIFFIN of Arkansas. I thank the Speaker, and I thank the 
gentlemen for joining me tonight here on the floor.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair is prepared to recognize a member 
of the minority party for 30 minutes.

                          ____________________