[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 170 (Tuesday, December 3, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H7430-H7433]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE AMERICAN DREAM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Messer). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2013, the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Garamendi) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, we have an opportunity today to talk 
about some things that are really important to America. I want to start 
really with this quote by Franklin Delano Roosevelt which kind of talks 
about where I am coming from and where I think we ought to be going as 
a Nation right now. I will try to explain this in a few moments, and 
then move on to really deal with this problem that we have in our 
Nation of income inequality, lost opportunity, or the absence of 
opportunity.
  FDR said:

       The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the 
     abundance of those who have much, it is rather whether we 
     provide enough for those who have too little.

  In America today, there are many, many Americans that have far too 
little. One out of four children in America goes to bed hungry at 
night. Unemployment remains at a peak level, somewhere north of 7-8 
percent. Real unemployment, that is, the unemployment of people who 
would like to work more, would like to have a full-time job, remains 
very, very high. What can we do about it?
  Well, we can think about the great American ideal, the American 
Dream. This gentleman pretty well laid it out. This is Bill Clinton 
talking about the American Dream. He said:

       If you work hard and play by the rules, you have the 
     freedom and the opportunity to pursue your dreams and leave 
     your kids a country where they can chase theirs.

  So between these two Presidents, I think we lay out a philosophy that 
is well worth our attention: make sure those who have little have an 
opportunity, that we pay attention to their needs, and that we make 
sure that the American Dream is always in place.
  Let's talk about that dream. How about the dream of going to college, 
college education. The ideal is college education is open to everyone. 
In reality, in 2007, one-half of the children from wealthy households 
completed college. Only 9 percent of the children from low-income 
households completed college. This gap is widening and has continued to 
widen since 2007, and obviously since 1989. The American Dream.
  How about this dream: FDR also talked about the four freedoms and one 
of them had to do with freedom from want. Part of the American Dream, 
it has been denied. As a result of the Great Recession, in 2010, a 
total of 46.2 million Americans were below the poverty level, the 
highest number of 52 years. The American Dream denied.
  When we talk about the American Dream and we talk about what 
Roosevelt said about those who have much versus those who have little, 
so what is going on in America? In America today, income inequality is 
growing. The ideal is you work hard, you will do okay. In reality, the 
U.S. ranks 93 in the world in income inequality, behind Great Britain, 
Australia, Nigeria, Argentina, and Japan. The American Dream: you work 
hard, you will do okay. The reality: income inequality in the United 
States is greater than the income inequality in Nigeria. Yes, it is.
  So what are we going to do?
  Well, here is what we are doing. Since the Great Recession, the 
recovery has been slow. We Democrats have some answers on what to do 
about that recovery, and we will get to that in a few moments, but I 
think we need to understand what has happened in the last 5 years.
  We have seen the economy grow. Every quarter since 2009, the economy 
has grown. The private sector economy has grown. Where did that wealth 
go? Where did the wealth of this Nation go? Well, 95 percent of the 
wealth generated in this Nation since 2009 has gone to the top 1 
percent of Americans. The remaining 99 percent have had to split what 
was left. During the Clinton economy, it was reversed. The top 1 
percent took 45 percent, and the bottom 99 percent took the remaining. 
So 1 percent took 95 percent, 99 percent were left with 5 percent.
  Income inequality: What do we do about it? How do we achieve the 
goals of President Clinton when he talked about the American Dream? How 
do we achieve the goals of FDR when he talked about our purpose, not to 
provide more for those who have great but to provide for those who have 
little? How can we do it?
  Well, one way we can do it is a long American tradition dating back 
to George Washington. In his first year in office, George Washington 
called upon Alexander Hamilton, his Treasury Secretary, to figure out 
how to grow the American economy. They were interested in 
manufacturing. The United States was basically exporting raw materials 
to Great Britain. George Washington wanted to build the American 
economy. So he said, Alex, give me a plan. So Alexander Hamilton came 
back a few months later with a plan, an economic development plan, 
based on manufacturing, and in that economic development plan, he said 
we need to do about a dozen things.

                              {time}  1515

  He said we need to build the infrastructure of the United States. He 
said we need to build the canals, the roads, and the ports. He said we 
needed to protect American manufacturing, so make sure that there are 
proper duties and tariffs on imported goods so that they would not 
overcome American manufacturers but, rather, level the playing field so 
that American manufacturers would have a shot. He said we needed to 
also make sure that we had good international trade agreements and use 
the American taxpayer money to buy American manufactured goods. It is 
all there. So for those who want to pay attention to the Founding 
Fathers, they ought to pay attention to what George Washington and 
Alexander Hamilton talked about in the first days of the first 
administration of this wonderful democracy we call America.
  Let's talk for a moment about infrastructure. Let's talk about those 
roads that George Washington described, Alexander Hamilton talked and 
wrote about in his report. Where are we with our infrastructure today?
  Joining me today is my colleague from Oregon, who has been working on 
the infrastructure issue now for more than a decade. He understands the 
problems that we have in our transportation systems and has a proposal.
  I now yield to Earl Blumenauer of Oregon.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. I deeply appreciate the gentleman from California 
yielding time to me, and I appreciate his leadership in focusing on 
where the economy is and where it needs to go.
  I think it is important to look back in time because you are 
absolutely right, that from the founding of the Republic, 
infrastructure loomed large. In the Constitution, there is a provision 
for postal roads. And 8 years after the plan that was developed by 
Alexander Hamilton for President Washington, there was the Gallatin 
plan that was developed for President Jefferson by his Secretary of the 
Treasury, Albert Gallatin. It had a vision for what would happen for 
that next American century.
  Throughout that time, infrastructure has been one thing that has 
brought Americans together. It is something that really didn't have a 
partisan tinge. Yes, Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican President, 
actually, on the anniversary, the centennial of the Gallatin plan, had 
his own vision for what we would do with inland waterways and 
reforestation, redeveloping America. His cousin, Franklin Roosevelt, a 
Democrat, likewise helped plant the seeds that ultimately grew into the 
Interstate Freeway Act, signed into law and funded by President 
Eisenhower. And 150 years ago, there was the Transcontinental Railroad 
Act with a Republican President, Abraham Lincoln.
  This infrastructure agenda is something that has made America great. 
It produced the finest infrastructure in the world. Until the last 
quarter century, America had the best airlines, roads, freeways, 
bridges, passenger and freight rail systems anywhere in the world. 
Unfortunately, we have not kept pace with our responsibility. We have 
not raised the gas tax for the last 20 years. That was part of the 
Clinton

[[Page H7431]]

plan in 1993 that helped kick off an unparalleled 8 years of economic 
prosperity.
  We face a situation now where the bottom is about to fall out of 
transportation funding. We have not heeded the call of other bipartisan 
commissions for Republican and Democratic Presidents alike to provide 
the transportation resources that would enable us to have a robust 
reauthorization of the transportation bill. In fact, the best the last 
Congress could do was a short-term 27-month extension that was kind of 
kept together by chewing gum and bailing wire, and that funding runs 
out in less than 10 months. What that means is that, by October 1 next 
year, transportation funding for roads will drop 92 percent if we just 
rely on the cash flow that goes into the depleted highway trust fund. 
Transit funding is eliminated. Over the course of the next 10 years, we 
will see a 30 percent reduction in already inadequate funding for the 
Federal partnership.
  We kept this afloat by transferring $55 billion of general fund 
borrowed money. We were able to get a little bit of infrastructure in 
the Recovery Act. And the last Congress did a little budget magic in 
terms of changing some provisions for pension funds that resulted in an 
uptick in general fund revenue that we used, transferred, to sort of 
get us through the next 10 months. But it is not adequate. It is not 
the signal the private sector needs. It is not the signal that our 
partners in State and local government need to be able to undertake the 
significant projects that will make a difference.
  If we really care about putting people to work, the fastest way to 
create hundreds of thousands of family-wage jobs is to adequately fund 
our infrastructure, family-wage jobs in every State in the Union that 
will start in a matter of months.
  If we care about American competitiveness, we will invest in 
infrastructure so that we can compete with the developments that are 
taking place around the world. If we care about the health of our 
communities, we will invest to deal with problems of deteriorating 
roads and bridges, problems of fraying infrastructure, inadequate 
transit, not having safe conditions for our children to bike and walk 
safely to school.
  While the discussion takes place about the budget deficit and this 
fiscal cliff or another, I think it is time that we ought to look at 
the infrastructure deficit and the transportation cliff that we face in 
less than 10 months. Tomorrow, I will be introducing some legislation, 
and I am pleased that I will be joined by leaders from labor, the 
Chamber of Commerce, construction, the professions of engineering, 
local government, a wide array of people who are willing to step up and 
join Congress to try and more realistically solve this problem.
  I can't say how much, Mr. Garamendi, I appreciate your tireless 
advocacy for rebuilding and renewing America, for dealing with 
manufacturing here, for putting Americans back to work at a time of, 
sadly, too persistent long-term unemployment, and particularly in the 
building and construction trades and with regard to architects and 
engineers where we have seen people just literally decimated. I 
appreciate your strong voice and advocacy and look forward to working 
with you as we go forward, hopefully, in this Congress, that we don't 
dodge our responsibility any further.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Blumenauer, there is no doubt that you are taking 
up the responsibility. You have been a leader for many years on this 
issue of transportation, how we can fund it, what we must do.
  I guess I knew, but I didn't realize it was coming so quickly, that 
we would fall off the transportation cliff, that the next fiscal year, 
10 months from now, the transportation programs funded by the Federal 
Government simply run out of money. Isn't it 90 percent or more of the 
funding that will be gone? Did I understand that correctly?
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. If we rely simply on current cash flow in the next 
fiscal year, we will see a 92 percent reduction in highway funding, and 
the transit budget will be zeroed out. And over the next 10 years, with 
the current revenue level, we will see a 30 percent reduction below the 
current inadequate levels.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Just before we came on the floor to talk about this 
issue of inequality in America and how we might deal with it, we heard 
our colleagues from the State of New York talk about the tragic transit 
accident that occurred. In listening to them, a couple of the Members 
talked about the need for rail improvement, upgrading the rail system 
in New York. If I am to hear you correctly, unless we provide 
additional revenue in the transportation funding program, there will be 
no money to upgrade the rail systems in New York or anywhere else 
around the United States.

  Mr. BLUMENAUER. We do not have a current revenue stream that is 
adequate for rail modernization. Simple. We had some additional money, 
again, in the Recovery Act. Although modest by international standards, 
it was a significant shot in the arm; but as you pointed out, that is 
running out.
  What is interesting is that I had an opportunity, a few years ago on 
a trip to China, to ride their high-speed trains. In 2009, there were 
no high-speed trains in China. Next year, they will carry more 
passenger traffic than the entire American aviation system.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Amazing.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. This can be done. Other countries are doing it. I was 
referring here just to the surface transportation fees, but there are 
certainly needs for rail modernization and safety. And, frankly, what 
is underground is in worse condition than what we see on the surface. 
We leak more water in America than we drink. Every day, it is the 
equivalent of 6 billion gallons of water, enough to fill Olympic-sized 
swimming pools, 9,000 of them, from Washington, D.C., to Pittsburgh.
  I deeply appreciate your courtesy in permitting me to share a few 
minutes with you on the floor this evening. I deeply appreciate your 
unstinting advocacy for making it in America, for doing it right, 
putting our families back to work, strengthening the economy, and 
making our communities more livable, our families safer, healthier, and 
more economically sound.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Blumenauer, you are bringing about a very 
important piece of legislation that will help us finance the systems 
that we need to build.
  We talk about immediate jobs. In talking about those immediate jobs, 
for every dollar that we would invest in transportation infrastructure, 
you get $1.59 of economic growth immediately back.
  Mr. Blumenauer, I know you have to go. You have another meeting. 
Thank you very much for bringing this critical issue to our attention.
  Now let me carry on for a few seconds about the infrastructure issue.
  If we make that critical investment, if we follow the leadership of 
Mr. Blumenauer, where we actually collect the money that is needed for 
our systems and put those dollars to work in America, several very 
important things will happen in the American economy.
  First of all, you lay down the foundation for immediate and future 
economic growth. You cannot grow the economy if you cannot move goods, 
services, and people across the Nation. In my State of California, we 
understand what gridlock is. We have got gridlock here in Congress. 
That is political gridlock. In California, when you are talking about 
gridlock, you are talking about sitting on a freeway and going nowhere; 
you are talking about the shipments of goods in and out of the ports 
that are delayed because they cannot get to the rail systems. They 
cannot get to the highways of America because of gridlock at the ports. 
We have an enormous necessity to lay in place the transportation 
infrastructure that can then allow the American economy to grow. That 
is point one.
  Point two is, in doing that infrastructure improvement, if we use the 
American taxpayer dollars--in this case, collected from the excise tax 
on gasoline and fuel--if we use that money to buy American-made 
equipment, we generate an additional economic growth model, and that is 
the reestablishment of the American manufacturing system.

                              {time}  1530

  Twenty years ago we had about somewhere between 19 and 20 million 
Americans in manufacturing making all kind of things, from Caterpillar

[[Page H7432]]

bulldozers and graders and loaders, to farm equipment, to airplanes, 
and technology systems from computers and the like. That was 20 years 
ago.
  Today there is just over 11 million in the manufacturing sector. We 
have lost 9 million manufacturing jobs in America. Those are the heart 
and soul of the American middle class. That is where a mother or a 
father could get a job, provide the income for their family, buy a 
home, buy the car, the boat, take the vacation, send their kids to 
college.
  That was where the American middle class found its foundation. It has 
been decimated by a number of policies that were enacted by previous 
Congresses and by a lack of attention all across this Nation to the 
foundational imperative of manufacturing.
  So we have been talking here for more than 2\1/2\ years now about a 
Make It In America agenda. If we are going to finance our 
transportation systems, then add to that a clause that says, the 
material, the bridges, the steel, the concrete, the equipment, will be 
American-made. It will be made in America.
  In doing so, we can go right back to Alexander Hamilton and George 
Washington, who wrote the first economic development plan for this 
Nation, and said use the American taxpayer money to support American 
industries.
  Hey, I am with Alex and George. They were correct. Use our taxpayer 
money to support American businesses, buy American, make it in America.
  It works. Let me give you an example. In Sacramento, California, near 
my district, is a manufacturing plant that was expanded, actually 
doubled in size in the last 2 years. It was doubled in size to build 
electric locomotives for Amtrak on the east coast corridor, between 
Washington, DC, and Boston.
  About 80 new locomotives are going to be built in Sacramento, 
California because, in the stimulus bill, the Recovery Act, somebody, 
probably a staffer, maybe a Senator, maybe a Member of Congress, wrote 
in one sentence and said, this 700-plus million dollars for the 
locomotives will be spent on American-made equipment, 100 percent 
American-made.
  American companies looked at that, shrugged their shoulders. A German 
company, Siemens, said, oh, $700 million contract, we can do it.
  Siemens took their light rail manufacturing plant in Sacramento, took 
that contract, doubled the size of their plant, doubled the size of 
their workforce, and is now building 100 percent American-made 
locomotives in Sacramento, California. Where 100 years ago they used to 
build locomotives, now they are doing it again.
  Why?
  Because somebody went all the way back to the very first President, 
took something that he said, and it was, we are going to spend American 
taxpayer money on American-made goods, in this case, American-made 
locomotives.
  Think about it. Think about the potential. Think about the potential 
if we were to really invest in infrastructure, if we were to follow Mr. 
Blumenauer's piece of legislation, take the money, invest in the roads, 
invest in our freeways, rebuild the bridges, of which more than 6,000 
are about to fall down or could fall down in the United States.
  Repair, rebuild, expand, allow the foundation of economic growth to 
grow, and use that taxpayer money for American jobs, buying American-
made equipment.
  Think of the possibilities. Think of the possibilities. Think back to 
where we started this conversation, about Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 
that it is our task not to add more to those who have much, but, 
rather, to add to those who have little.
  Those men and women in the construction trades that have lost their 
job, where unemployment is well over 30, 40 percent, think about them 
being able to get that middle class job building the infrastructure.
  Think about the manufacturers out there, the small businesses, the 
large businesses, the supply train that Siemens has set up all across 
this Nation to provide the electronics, to provide the electric motors 
and all of the steel, that huge supply train.
  Think about what could be done if we put in place policies today, 
here in the United States Congress, to build our infrastructure, to use 
our taxpayer money for American jobs; that unemployed individual that 
is now on food stamps, perhaps on a welfare check, getting a job in 
that manufacturing sector that is providing that tool that is going to 
be used on that locomotive.
  Think about that unemployed family, that construction worker, the 
operating engineer who has been sitting on the sidelines, surviving on 
food stamps and on assistance, able to go back to work, sitting on that 
Caterpillar tractor that is manufactured in America, providing the 
income necessary for his family and providing the taxes necessary for 
the growth of this Nation's ability to reduce its deficit.
  It is possible. We can do this. We can rebuild America. We can 
compete with anybody. There is no other culture in the world that is so 
entrepreneurial, so driven to succeed.
  But here we are, 435 of us, caught up in a gridlock where we can't do 
anything, where the transportation bill languishes, where the farm bill 
languishes, so that our farmers don't know what to plant next year. 
This has got to end. We have got to stop this.
  We need to think back on those giants of America's past. George 
Washington told Alexander Hamilton, give me a manufacturing program for 
the United States, an economic development program.
  Alexander Hamilton came back; we need to build ports, roads, canals. 
We need to protect American industry with wise laws and trade laws. We 
need to have a tax policy that encourages investment, and we need to 
make sure that we are using the tax money to buy American-made.
  Think back on Jefferson, who told his Treasury Secretary, give me a 
plan for the next century, the 1800s, an economic development plan.
  Teddy Roosevelt, and then Franklin Roosevelt, Eisenhower, men of 
vision, leaders of vision that were willing to step forward, willing to 
use the resources of this Nation, collecting those resources and 
dispensing those resources across the Nation to build the foundation 
for economic growth.
  The Make It In America agenda is available to us today. That agenda 
is a trade policy that protects American industry, not a free trade 
that gives it away, but a fair trade policy that protects American 
industry; a tax policy that encourages economic growth here in the 
United States, that rewards corporations for bringing it home, and ends 
tax breaks for corporations that ship the jobs offshore, an energy 
policy that utilizes the great energy capacity of this Nation, 
everything from conservation and wind and solar and, indeed, the 
petroleum products.
  We need that energy policy in place today so that the wind industry 
in the United States, which is a huge industry in my district, can 
count on tomorrow's tax policy, which will end in less than a year, so 
they are not building.
  When we give a tax credit for solar, and when we give a tax credit 
for wind, or to the oil industry, we tell them, you only get that tax 
credit when you buy American-made solar panels, wind turbines and the 
like, because, after all, you are using American taxpayer money.
  We need a labor policy so that we can re-educate those men and women 
who will no longer have a job in an industry that is no longer in 
existence. We need to make sure that labor has a fair shot, and in the 
labor policy we absolutely must raise the minimum wage. That holds up 
the floor, and deals with the issue of poverty in America.
  Education, research, infrastructure. This is the Make It In America 
agenda. This is the agenda that we can grow jobs in America. This is 
the agenda that can address the American Dream.
  This is the agenda that goes back to what Franklin Delano Roosevelt 
said when he talked about freedom from want. Freedom from want means 
that you must be able to get a decent job in America to support 
yourself and your family, so that the working men and women of America 
have a shot at the generation of wealth that this country can produce.
  Franklin Delano Roosevelt said it is our task not to provide more for 
those who have much, but to provide for those who have little. So when 
you find that the policies of America have allowed this kind of wealth 
distribution to take place over the last 5 years, you know that those 
policies need to change. Those policies have to change.
  When 1 percent of the American population is able to gather 95 
percent of

[[Page H7433]]

the wealth generated in this Nation between 2009 and 2012, something is 
terribly wrong with the policies of this Nation. That is what happened.
  That is what Americans have labored for, so that 95 percent of the 
wealth generated by the men and women who work in America winds up in 
the hands of 1 percent of this population.
  We have got some policy problems. We have to deal with this.
  If you believe what Bill Clinton said about the American Dream, being 
able to provide for your family, being able to provide that education, 
being able to make things better not only for yourself but for the next 
generation, then this kind of issue has to be dealt with.
  This is a fundamental economic problem. The growth of this economy is 
dependent upon the ability of the American workers to have an income so 
that they can pursue their dream, and when the wealth winds up with 
this kind of a skewed situation, the 95 percent are not able to become 
the consumers to buy the home, to buy the car, to develop the 
opportunities that they need for their family.
  How can we deal with this?
  Well, one way we heard about today. We heard from Mr. Blumenauer 
about the necessity of building our transportation system so that the 
foundation for economic growth is in place, the transportation system. 
We need to do that, and doing so will put Americans back to work with 
those good, middle class jobs for working American families.
  We need to put in place a Make It In America policy. Trade, taxes, 
energy, labor, education, research infrastructure, that is our agenda. 
That is our agenda for growth in America.
  It is also our agenda for dealing with the deficit. You want to deal 
with the deficit, put Americans back to work. Watch that tax money come 
into the coffers of this Nation's treasury. It will happen.
  But you keep a large percentage of Americans out of work, you keep 
them at low wages, and you keep them unemployed, you are not going to 
able to deal with the deficit. Go back to work Americans--and you deal 
with the deficit.

                              {time}  1545

  How do you do that? Infrastructure, trade policy, make sure your tax 
policy is in place that encourages economic growth and investment and 
all the rest.
  We can do this. We can do this. We are America. We have done this in 
the past. We have had leaders in the past that have talked about these 
things and done them. We have had a Congress in the past that has 
listened to their own leadership, to those among their caucuses that 
said, Let's get on with it. Let's build for the future. Those leaders 
are here--not at this moment, but they are here on this floor day after 
day. They know. They understand, If you want to deal with the deficit, 
put Americans back to work. If you want to deal with the American 
Dream, give them a good job. Raise the minimum wage so that every 
working person at least can provide food on their table and shelter for 
themselves and their families. It is all possible.
  This isn't something new to America. This is what America has done 
before. And this is our job. This is our job. The Congress of the 
United States, the Senate, the administration, that is what we are here 
for. That is our job.
  Mr. Speaker, before I yield back, first I have got to talk about one 
other thing, and that is another challenge that we face, and that 
challenge is about climate change. This is real, folks. This is not 
something that a bunch of scientists have dreamed up. This is a very, 
very real issue for this world. Many of the policies we talk about here 
can directly go to the issue of climate change.
  I represent 200 miles of the Sacramento River Valley, from the very 
beginning of the Sacramento River at the beginning of the San Francisco 
Bay, 200 miles up, past the city of Sacramento, past the cities of Yuba 
City, Marysville, all the way to Chico. It is an area that is one of 
the most flood-prone areas in America.
  Climate change is going to increase rainfall--maybe not the total 
rainfall throughout the year, but the incidence of extraordinary, heavy 
downpours will increase.
  Not too many people want to ascribe the recent typhoon in the 
Philippines to climate change, but there is ever-increasing evidence 
that extreme storms are a result of climate change. And it figures: 
more heat, more moisture, more storms, more precipitation--it is all 
there.
  So as we go forward, dealing with these issues of economic 
development, of infrastructure, we need to keep in mind the issue of 
climate change and its immediate effect: droughts in some areas, where 
there weren't droughts before; floods in other areas, where there is a 
need to put in the infrastructure.
  In the case of my district, the infrastructure of levees. My 
constituents are at risk. My constituents need the Federal Government 
to pass a Water Resources Development Act that provides the foundation 
and the authorization for levee improvements, and they need the 
appropriations. They need the money.
  It is our task to keep America safe, whether that is from some 
military threat from somewhere in the world or from some natural 
threat, for example, extreme storms, extreme flooding, making sure the 
infrastructure, the levees, and the protections for our citizens are in 
place.
  I want us to deal with that; and as we put together the Water 
Resources Development Act, where I have the privilege of being on the 
conference committee, we intend to do our best to make sure that the 
authorization for those projects necessary for water development, as 
well as flood protection, are in place. And then we must go about the 
task of finding a way to pay for it.
  Mr. Blumenauer is introducing a bill tomorrow to find a way to pay 
for the transportation systems. We need to do the same for the water 
infrastructure systems. We cannot neglect this task. It is our job.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________