[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14090-14097]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    REPUBLICAN FRESHMAN PERSPECTIVE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Connolly of Virginia). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 6, 2009, the gentlewoman from 
Wyoming (Mrs. Lummis) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of 
the minority leader.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Speaker, my name is Cynthia Lummis. I am the Member 
of Congress from Wyoming. I am a freshman and a Republican.
  This is the first time that the freshman Republicans have engaged in 
a Special Order, and it's my privilege to be joined by members of the 
Republican freshmen. This is our opportunity to share with you our 
perspective on these first 5 months in Congress that we have shared 
together as freshmen, to tell you a little bit about ourselves and 
about our views about this process, about where we have been in the 
last 5 months and where we think, as fiscal conservatives, the Nation 
should be going instead.
  And I'm so pleased to be joined, first of all, by one of my freshmen 
colleagues, who has a very interesting background. Glenn Thompson, from 
Pennsylvania, is in addition to his professional career a volunteer 
firefighter and has volunteered for the Boy Scouts for 30 years. I 
yield to him to talk to you about why he chose to run for Congress and 
what he is accomplishing here, and how he feels that if this Congress 
could work together more closely on fiscal conservatism, how this 
Nation would currently be better off and on the road to recovery.
  I yield to Mr. Thompson.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Well, I thank the gentlewoman from 
Wyoming, and it's a pleasure to be with you tonight here and sharing 
our reflections on these first 5 months as Members of the 111th 
Congress. It's an honor to serve in Congress. It's an honor today.
  In health care, my background was health care. I always had one boss. 
And today I consider that I have 660,000 very smart people that I work 
for in the constituents of the Pennsylvania Fifth Congressional 
District, and frankly, it's an honor to serve those individuals and 
this great Nation.
  And I'm proud to be a part of this freshman Republican class. We come 
with diverse backgrounds, as you began to talk about, but we have a 
common characteristic of bringing real change to Congress. And it's 
change that the American citizens deserve and need to have. It's a 
vision of fiscal accountability, of preserving individual freedom and 
liberty and returning America to the values that this country was built 
upon.
  And you touched off, the gentlelady has really touched off with the 
first one for this evening for our discussion, fiscal responsibility. 
And I would put in with that, fiscal accountability and transparency in 
terms of how the taxpayer dollars are being spent. We are guardians of, 
we are trusted. We have a responsibility to make sure that those 
dollars that the American citizens work hard for, that they are spent 
wisely here in Washington, and only on those things that they should be 
spent on and not wasted and spent in a way that's transparent and 
that's accountable.
  You know, Washington, DC, really doesn't have a revenue problem. We 
have a spending problem. We hear time and time again with the 
legislation being proposed, well, you know, under the last 
administration we had a spending problem. Well, as the freshman class 
we recognize that. I think we agree with it. That's one of the reasons 
we came to Washington, because we knew that there was out of control 
spending here and that the American people deserved better. They 
deserve the same fiscal responsibility from their Federal Government 
that they exercise in their own household budgets every day.
  American families make tough decisions when things get tough 
fiscally. You know, they don't go out. They don't put more money--they 
know enough not to go out and do deficit spending and fill up all the 
credit cards and take out loans where they have no idea who's going to 
be able to afford to lend them the money, if somebody will. But the 
Federal Government has been doing that.
  You know, the freshmen, the Republican freshmen, all came here to 
restore fiscal accountability and responsibility. And that's why we're 
united in

[[Page 14091]]

opposing the massive waste-filled stimulus, or as I prefer to call it, 
``stimuless'' bill that we had.
  And I don't think it's a reflection on my public education, but I 
have to say before I came to Congress I had no idea how many zeros were 
in a trillion.

                              {time}  2230

  The fact is I really didn't think it was physically possible to be 
able to spend almost $2 trillion in 3 months, but frankly, my friends 
and colleagues, Democratic colleagues, proved me wrong with that. In 
the President's first 100 days, it's estimated he spent $11.9 billion 
for each day he was in office. That's a number that's very difficult to 
wrap our brains around in terms of that amount of money. That means 
more new debt will be created under this one budget than all the 
combined debt created by the previous 43 Presidents, going all the way 
back to George Washington.
  That's a lot of debt, and that's debt that the American people do not 
deserve to have. It's debt that I don't consider I will be in a 
position to pay back, my children, my grandchildren I don't have yet, 
great-grandchildren--I don't know how many greats we're going to have 
to go out in order to get enough generations to be able to satisfy that 
debt that we've wracked up just in 5 months here in Congress.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. I have the privilege of serving on the House Budget 
Committee, and yesterday Dr. Bernanke testified at our hearing and 
expressed his concern over the need for Congress to develop a plan to 
come up with a way to deal with these debts and our deficit issues. 
They are part of a risk that is presented to our country long term if 
we don't begin to address them now, and after passing a $700-plus 
billion stimulus package, over $1.1 trillion when you consider the 
interest on top of that; also, the $410 billion budget for the current 
fiscal year; and then approving in the Budget Committee, over the 
objection of all of the Republicans a nearly $3.6 trillion budget for 
the next fiscal year, I firmly agree with the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania about the concerns that we all have as freshmen, 
Republicans, for the tremendous debt and the tremendous deficit that is 
being undertaken.
  I would like to ask a couple of other colleagues to join in this 
conversation. Next, calling on Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri, who is 
another member of our freshman Republican class who is the rarest of 
rare commodities in Congress in that he has operated and continues to 
operate a small business. He currently operates a 160-acre farm after 
serving as a leader in a number of other small businesses. And if any 
entity within this Congress does not get the attention it deserves, I 
would suggest that it is small business.
  And I yield to my colleague, Mr. Luetkemeyer from Missouri.
  Mr. LUETKEMEYER. I thank the gentlelady from Wyoming (Mrs. Lummis). 
It's a great evening that you've put together for us here.
  You know, we've been here a little over a 100 days, about 120 days 
now, and we've all got some first impressions of what this body is all 
about, what our work is all about, and it's been kind of an eye-opening 
experience for me coming from the Midwest.
  My little community in my district I think is a true slice of 
Americana, in that it's full of small towns and it's where you know 
your neighbors and where you wave at them as they go by. You know, we 
still have gun racks in the back of pickups where I come up. But we 
also have some great people, and that's the reason that I was excited 
to be able to represent those folks.
  You know, where I come from people still believe in limited 
government, lower taxes, self-reliance on the individual, common sense, 
and balanced budgets, whether they're their own or the local political 
entity.
  It's kind of ironic, though. When you get here, things seem to 
change. In my mind, what a difference 2,000 miles make in the way 
governance takes place. Coming from the statehouse in Missouri, I know 
it's completely different, but yet it's the same type of process; 
although that kind of seems to be completely different.
  You know, here, instead of limited government, we seem to be content 
and intent on expanding government by leaps and bounds into every 
aspect of people's lives, into the businesses.
  Instead of lower taxes, we're about to consider the largest tax 
increase in the history of this country, which I think will push us off 
an economic cliff. I have some grave concerns about it. As I go home 
and talk to my constituents about the carbon tax, the cap-and-trade 
bill that's coming up shortly, they're alarmed and they're very 
concerned.
  Another one that I mentioned was self-reliance. It's interesting that 
today we passed another bill which adds to the government payroll, the 
government bailout, the government, people on our payroll, instead of 
allowing people to be able to take care of themselves.
  And if you'd mind, I've got a little story to tell about some good 
folks at home that are just like everybody else's, but it's interesting 
to see and to note we had a terrible tragedy that ran through my 
district a few weeks ago. We had a tornado that went through and 
actually killed three folks, very tragic, did thousands of dollars 
worth of damage. It happened during the week when I was here in DC. So 
I called up my folks at home and asked a couple of my guys to be sure 
and go out and talk to those folks and give them some help, whatever 
help they needed, and assure them we'd be there to help them in 
whatever way we could.
  I went there the next day when I did get home and met with the local 
leaders and it was amazing. All the emergency folks, the community 
leaders had everything under control, and it was amazing how ordered 
and how orderly they were. There was no Federal Government running in 
there to tell them what to do. They were all doing it themselves with 
their own plans.
  Then I went out and talked to the local folks who had sustained the 
damage, who had endured this tragedy. And while they were upset and 
distraught and certainly you know, not in the best frame of mind, they 
still were very thankful because they had a community of folks that was 
around them, that was giving them the support that they needed to be 
able to withstand this ordeal and get through it.
  And the strength of the community is a thing that really was 
impactful to me, from the standpoint that that community came together, 
and there was such an outpouring that there was probably more help than 
they actually needed to help with the cleanup and to give them the 
support they needed to get back on their feet.
  And that's the kind of people that we have in this country, all over 
this country. Given the chance, they can be that self-reliant people 
that can bring this country back to what it is.
  With regards to the common sense I mentioned a minute ago, it's one 
of the most often heard comments I hear when I go back home, What in 
the world are you guys doing in DC? And of course, my response is, 
well, common sense is something a little in short supply here in DC 
sometimes. Just, it's kind of a foreign concept.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. That is exactly what I hear when I go home. Wyoming 
people want Wyoming common sense. It is the same kind of common sense 
that you discussed was evident among people that were experiencing a 
tragedy in your district and who got together and solved the problem, 
and that is something that we as a class of freshman Republicans hope 
to do as well.
  We represent 20 States. We span in age from 28 years old, our 
youngest Member, to 64 years old. Five are physicians or work in health 
care, and as Mr. Thompson mentioned, he works in health care. One of 
our physicians is with us this evening, Dr. Phil Roe, and we will be 
visiting with him shortly. We have two college athletes, six with 
military backgrounds among our 22 freshmen Republicans, four former 
State treasurers and 16 State legislators or statewide officers.
  And I know Mr. Luetkemeyer was a State legislator, as was I, as is 
our next freshman who's going to visit with us, a gentleman from 
Minnesota, Erik Paulsen, and I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota 
who first I might mention still finds time to teach Sunday

[[Page 14092]]

school at his Lutheran church, Missouri Synod, of which I am also a 
member, and who as State legislator helped eliminate Minnesota's $4.5 
billion State budget deficit without raising taxes. So this is someone 
that we desperately need working to pull off a similar success story 
here in Washington.
  I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.
  Mr. PAULSEN. Well, I thank the gentlelady for yielding and organizing 
our little get-together tonight, and I have to tell you it's been a 
wonderful opportunity to serve as a freshman Member of Congress, not 
only with our good Republican Members who are here taking some time on 
the House floor tonight, but even with some of the Democrat 
counterparts who have been trying to work on a bipartisan basis. I 
think a lot of us, to be honest, are frustrated with the leadership 
around here that doesn't necessarily give us the opportunity to offer 
amendments, to offer change that Washington in particular I think 
really does need, the American people more than anything really need 
right now.
  You mentioned small business earlier. I have to tell you, one of my 
observations here after being a freshman Member, not only being away 
from family, spending time away from family, but the frustration of 
trillions of dollars of new spending, driving up the Federal budget 
deficit at an alarming rate and the Federal debt at an alarming rate.

                              {time}  2240

  But it's really a lack of focus on small business. Think of it. Seven 
to eight of every ten new jobs comes from small business. That is 
really the engine of economic growth in this country.
  Rightfully so, the new administration and this Congress wanted to 
focus on a stimulus package to help the economy. Unfortunately, I think 
we really missed an opportunity to help small businesses.
  I held some small business roundtables in my district and, boy, some 
of the stories I heard from those folks were a little bit alarming. One 
gentleman in particular said he basically felt that high taxes were the 
hindrance. High taxes were the hindrance to his continued economic 
growth. He's been forced indefinitely now to delay a multimillion-
dollar project.
  Another gentleman that came to that small business roundtable, he 
told me specifically that small businesses should be able to save more 
of their money for a rainy day. And they're all going through a rainy 
day right now, like a lot of the American public is going through, 
unfortunately. But the tax code penalizes them for doing that, so we're 
not helping small business.
  There's one other gentleman who owns a company. He basically was 
frustrated that the credit markets are hurting his ability to get 
additional capital. If he could just get a couple more hundred thousand 
dollars of credit from a community bank, from a bank of some sort, he 
could hire some more people. He's been hiring brand new employees that 
have never been employed in the workforce before. So he has got some 
good success stories to tell. We want to keep that going, however.
  So, as a member of the Financial Services Committee, I have been 
frustrated because it seems all of our discussion here in Washington is 
about too big to fail; how are we going to help all these big 
companies. But how are we going to help small business? That's where we 
really, I think, have to focus our time and attention, because if we're 
going to pull ourselves out of this economic recession, we have to help 
the small business owner down the road because that's the person who 
has put in all the risk, all their individual capital, the 
entrepreneurship, that spirit of America that founded this country. 
That's where I think we really need to have our effort going forward.
  And you think of the problems we have seen lately with the government 
now buying the large auto companies and having a stake--60 percent 
ownership that the taxpayers who are watching us tonight now own 
General Motors. That's very troubling. Very troubling.
  In particular, I have met--and I think all of you, Congresswoman 
Lummis and others, have met with small business people who come and 
seek our help as they walk the Halls of Congress saying, Here's what 
you can do to help us get some business tax relief.
  This week I met with small business people who are frustrated. They 
receive a letter of notice in the mail saying they had to close their 
operation because that was the will of the auto task force from the 
administration. And I think these auto dealers who have put in so much 
time and effort--many of these are family businesses and they have, 
unfortunately, invested their time, their capital. They own the land. 
They own the company. They're selling cars. They employ people, and 
they're forced to lay off folks.
  And so I'm frustrated. I'd like to see the government not picking the 
winners and losers here.
  So I'm just really encouraged. We have got a good class of freshmen 
that want to help small business. I know Congressman Schock has an 
initiative to go forward that will temporarily provide some payroll tax 
relief for the employers and the employees, which I think is so 
critical from a real economic stimulus plan.
  And I'm working on an economic plan for small business right now to 
separate business income from personal income because, as we all know, 
many of these small businesses unfortunately pay their taxes at that 
individual rate. And when they're paying at that individual rate, it's 
a higher rate, especially under the new tax plan that was passed by 
Congress.
  So now they're going to be paying higher taxes, so they can't hire 
somebody. They can't buy more equipment. So, if we can separate those 
streams of income, I think we have tremendous opportunity to help small 
business.
  So I want to keep working with you on that effort
  Mrs. LUMMIS. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PAULSEN. I'd be happy to yield.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. You know, that is very much a bipartisan frustration 
right now. I read of Senators and other House Members who are 
tremendously concerned about their local dealers, GM, Chrysler, having 
to give up a profitable business because of this takeover. Both sides 
of the aisle on both sides of the Capitol building share in their 
tremendous frustration over the manner in which the bankruptcy of GM 
and Chrysler are playing out.
  I want to give a moment to another member of our freshman class who 
has joined us, Dr. Roe. The gentleman from Tennessee served as a doctor 
for 2 years in the U.S. Army Medical Corps and has delivered close to 
5,000 babies. He also has been the mayor of his small town and was very 
successful in using their landfill as a source of energy for that 
community. And being a mayor of a town of people of very modest means 
requires an amount of creativity that is unique in this country.
  Welcome, Dr. Roe. Please join our discussion.
  Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Thank you. It's great to be here tonight. I, 
too, echo Congressman Paulsen. We do have a very, very fine, diverse 
freshman class. I think we add a lot to the debate.
  I guess many of the speakers tonight sort of mentioned why they ran 
for Congress. I do have one distinct advantage. I delivered a lot of my 
own voters. So that's a huge advantage when you're out on the trail and 
you deliver babies.
  I ran, really, to serve my country. I have had a very successful 
medical career in Johnson City, Tennessee, which is where I'm from. And 
for those of you who don't know, so you can remember, it's the only 
congressional district in America that's had two Presidents, Andrew 
Jackson, Andrew Johnson, and Davy Crockett served in this body as a 
Congressman. Andrew Jackson was the first person to sit in this seat, 
so it's a very historic seat in northeast Tennessee.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. Will the gentleman yield? I understand that in the old 
Senate Chamber that still exists in this building that you can go see 
Congressman Crockett's desk. Is that the case?

[[Page 14093]]


  Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Yes, that is correct. That is correct. The 
reason that I--it was about 10 years ago. I have never had service in 
the State government or Federal Government before. I really wanted to 
take this time just to serve my country as I did my patients over the 
years. So I was asked to be on the city commission and ran and was 
fortunate enough to win, and then became mayor of Johnson City after my 
second win.
  I brought a very simple philosophy to government, and that is: Spend 
less than you take in. It's not complicated.
  Well, how do we do with that philosophy? Well, we had 6 years ago in 
our city of 60,000 people, we had $2 million, approximately $2 million 
in reserve. When I last came to Congress, we had $24 million in 
reserve. We have not raised taxes, and our bond rating went up during 
2008 when everybody else's had gone off a cliff.
  The city has a great management, has a great commission. They're 
going to balance this budget. And every single budget we passed had a 
surplus.
  Now, the philosophy in Washington, D.C., I found, is you borrow more 
than you take in. You spend that and what you take in also. That's what 
we've done here this year. As you probably have mentioned, we start our 
fiscal year on 1 October. And by the 26th of April of this year, we had 
spent all the money that the taxpayers had sent us for the year. So 
everything we're running on now is borrowed money.
  The folks back home, as they have you all, ask you what is your 
biggest frustration or surprise or whatever. A lot of them think it's 
the workload. It's not that. To me, it's the partisanship and, second, 
it's the spending. I just can't get over the staggering amount of money 
that we spend up here.
  And to give you an example, in our local city, we've put $120-plus 
million in water and sewer improvements. Didn't raise taxes. We were 
able to do that. We paid for it. We didn't have the Federal Government 
pay for it. We paid for it locally.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Yes.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. How did you pay for it?
  Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Well, we just spent less than what we took in. 
It wasn't complicated. In the city where we were, we have one of the 
lowest tax rates in the State of Tennessee. So smaller government, less 
people working. We had fewer employees than we had 8 years ago. And 
lean government. They reward you. The taxpayers like that and they 
reward you for that kind of work.
  The other thing we did was we could see--and all of you all dealt 
with this in State governments--the new ozone levels that the EPA came 
down with when they lowered that from 80 to 75 parts per billion, a lot 
of people around don't understand what that means. Well, if you go into 
nonattainment, meaning you don't attain those standards, the EPA has a 
right to freeze all building permits, so you cannot grow your 
community.
  And we understood where we were. If you had the infrastructure, the 
roads, water, sewer, and schools, you could grow and business would 
want to come there. As Erik pointed out, you want an environment where 
business can flourish.
  And we looked at the challenge we had with energy and said, Okay, how 
do we manage this energy problem we're having? Did we look at raising 
taxes on power? No. What we did was this. We had a landfill, as you've 
mentioned, and we looked at this as an opportunity. And we went into a 
private-public partnership with a private company, zero tax dollars, 
and formed this partnership where we went to our landfill, we capped 
the landfill, drilled wells into it, sent a pipe 4 miles over to our 
VA, which is a hundred-acre VA, the Quillen College of Medicine, named 
after Congressman Quillen who served here for 34 years. Huge campus. 
They heat and cool that campus with the gas, the methane gas, which is 
the second largest greenhouse gas outside of carbon dioxide.
  You, the Federal taxpayer, get a 15 percent discount on your bill. 
We, the local taxpayer, make money off royalties--about half a million-
plus per year--and the private company created jobs and made money. 
That's the way you do it.
  We cut our consumption from a million gallons of fuel a year to 
850,000 gallons. And when gas was $4 a gallon, that's very, very 
significant.

                              {time}  2250

  To give you another example about what you could do: around the 
country, we did some simple things like just change the lights in a 
stoplight from the 150-watt bulb to an LED bulb. In every intersection 
over the period of that lighting, you can save almost $800 per 
intersection. Multiply that across the country. It's the carrot versus 
the stick that we're seeing now.
  You all may have talked about this before I got here, but within days 
of getting here, we were faced with the stimulus package, which arrived 
as a 450-page document that went to the Senate and came back as 750 
pages. It then came back at conference at 1,071. I carry it around in 
the trunk of my car and show people how big it is. We had 4 hours or 5 
hours to read it here on the House floor. We got it, I think, at 9 
o'clock on Friday morning and put it on at 2 o'clock that afternoon.
  Then we were faced with the omnibus spending bill. The 110th Congress 
had 12 appropriations in the bill, and we have them every year. Only 
three had been passed. Every local government, every business, every 
State in the Union tightens their belts when their revenue is down. So 
what did we do? We went up 8 percent. We passed an 8 percent increase. 
I felt like I was in the twilight zone. Then we got the next budget 
after we got a $1.8 trillion deficit. Guess what? We raised that 8 
percent. Then there is this year's budget that's coming along, and 
that's $3.9 trillion. People back home--I'm talking about Democrats, 
Republicans, Independents, and apolitical people--do not understand 
that, and I don't understand that kind of spending. It is not 
sustainable.
  Now we've got two big issues that we're going to be facing that are 
coming up ahead of us: our health care--and I'm really glad to be in 
the middle of that discussion--and the carbon tax.
  I yield back.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you.
  Let me tell you about a few of our other classmates who could not be 
here this evening. We anticipated that we would have votes tomorrow and 
that we would have more members of our freshman class able to join us, 
but because of votes not being taken tomorrow, some people tried to get 
home tonight so they could visit with both their families and their 
constituents.
  Among them is Chris Lee from New York, who has spent two decades as a 
business entrepreneur in New York; Tom McClintock of California, 
another of our freshman colleagues, who was first elected to the 
California State Legislature at the age of 26; Pete Olson of Texas, a 
naval aviator for 9 years, who had missions in the Persian Gulf, also a 
naval liaison officer in the U.S. Senate; another, Bill Posey of 
Florida, an accomplished stock car racer. We have all become, of 
course, Pittsburgh Steeler fans due to our good friend and fellow 
freshman, Tom Rooney of Florida, who also played college football and 
was a special assistant U.S. Attorney at Fort Hood and taught military 
law.
  With that kind of diversity in our freshman class, it has been really 
helpful to me. For example, between votes, I can sit down on the floor 
next to Representative Rooney and ask him about things like enhanced 
interrogation techniques.
  Well, look. He just walked in the room.
  I didn't know you were still here. I'm so pleased to see you. It's 
that kind of expertise that makes our class such a close group and very 
helpful to each other as we are dealing with the many issues at hand.
  So, with the magical appearance of Representative Rooney, I'm 
delighted that you have chosen to join us this evening.
  I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

[[Page 14094]]


  Mr. ROONEY. Well, thank you very much.
  I thank the gentlelady from Wyoming for giving us the opportunity to 
reflect on our first 100 days and on, really, where we're going as a 
country and on the direction that we, as freshmen, when we all ran for 
Congress, thought we were going to go when we got here and on how we 
were going to try to make a difference, not only in our individual 
communities but in the country as a whole.
  I was watching earlier on C-SPAN the former speakers talk about the 
spending and the size of government. I think that that's really the 
lighthouse that I use as a direction as to who we want to be as 
Americans and as to who we want to be as Congressmen. We really have a 
decision to make here as we move forward with all of the things that we 
have to consider.
  I've got to be honest with you. It's very disheartening to see, as 
the father of three very young children, what we're leaving them as a 
legacy so far. Although, I am very encouraged by my fellow freshmen and 
by the people whom I meet on the treasure coast of Florida, in central 
Florida, in western Florida, and in the district that I represent, the 
16th District of Florida. They remind me of why they sent me to 
Washington and of why they sent all of us to Washington.
  It's never going to fall on deaf ears for me that the American people 
whom I represent and the American people whom I talk to believe in a 
strong United States of America, one with a strong military but one 
that lets the free market dictate who they're going to be without 
inhibiting where they're going to go.
  It just breaks my heart to hear this week that auto dealers that 
employ hundreds of people and that contribute so much to my community 
are being closed. For what reason? They're not really sure. It's just 
because they were the ones picked even though, for decades, they've 
been profitable companies. People that own certain automobiles--I won't 
go into what they are--may have to travel over an hour now to get their 
cars serviced. Really, again, it's who we want to be as Americans.
  I just want to thank the freshmen personally. The reason I really 
wanted to be here tonight was to thank you, personally, for signing up 
to a letter that I sent to the Speaker of the House today, asking her 
to not include a global bailout, really, of foreign countries on the 
backs of our American servicemen and women who are fighting.
  As a former Army captain with my fellow colleague, who is a former 
marine--or a current marine--Duncan Hunter, we asked the freshmen 
Republicans to ask the Speaker not to include something that has 
nothing to do with funding our troops in the service that they're 
providing, which is putting themselves in harm's way for our liberty 
and for our freedoms, and really holding a military funding bill 
hostage with this IMF funding bill that has nothing to do with military 
spending.
  To do that, for me, honestly, has been the biggest disappointment in 
my short tenure here in Congress. I have to explain to those men and 
women--and a lot of them are still active duty who my wife and I served 
with--that there is a problem with putting ammunition in their weapons 
or in giving them the body armor that they deserve or in up-armoring 
vehicles that they have to drive in because the majority has put into 
this bill something that has nothing to do with military spending. To 
try to explain that and to try to even justify to myself that what 
we're doing is the right thing is very difficult.
  As we move forward as freshmen, whatever we decide to do on a lot of 
these issues, we can never forget why we're here and who sent us here.
  Again, I just really thank you very much for giving us the 
opportunity to reflect and also for giving us the hope to move forward 
on a lot of the things that we're about to do here in Congress.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ROONEY. Absolutely.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you for your statement.
  Now, we have six freshmen here of the Republican class and, indeed, a 
seventh member in the Chair. Our Speaker this evening is a member of 
the majority party, a Democrat. It would be really fascinating at some 
point to have a Special Order some evening with our Democrat colleagues 
who are freshmen as well, because I think many of us came to Congress 
with a different perspective, with a new perspective, regardless of 
party, about how we think America can move forward.
  As freshmen Republicans, we did support legislation that would 
stimulate economic growth. It would have cost $315 billion less than 
the bill that Congress adopted, the Democratic bill; and it would have 
created twice as many jobs.

                              {time}  2300

  In my district in Wyoming, it would have created 50 percent more 
jobs; but in many districts that are suffering mightily, it created 
twice as many jobs. That because we really targeted and took to heart 
what President Obama asked us to do, and that was to be targeted and 
temporary. Unfortunately the bill that was adopted was neither 
targeted--it was a shotgun approach to economic stimulus--and it is not 
temporary. Many provisions in that bill are built into the ongoing 
spending of government and inflate the costs of government, as Dr. Roe 
pointed out earlier, by adding to the baseline of expenditures that 
will go up and up and up in the future.
  One of the things that Representative Rooney just mentioned that is 
so frustrating to all of us, I think on both sides of the aisle, is 
seeing legislation that is not germane to the subject of the bill being 
attached to the bill. In the case that Representative Rooney was just 
discussing with us, it was the funding for our military men and women 
in Iraq and Afghanistan and in Pakistan, and the addition to that bill 
would lend money or guarantee money to the International Monetary Fund. 
No connection whatsoever. And the IMF funding has created a situation 
where we're not voting tomorrow on that bill because there are not 
sufficient votes to pass it by virtue of an amendment that was not 
germane being added to a bill. In the Wyoming legislature you cannot do 
that. You cannot amend a nongermane topic to a piece of legislation or 
it is ruled out of order. If that rule were in effect here, we would 
see much better legislation. We would see people having a better 
opportunity to vet that legislation, discuss that legislation and then 
vote with their heart rather than having to grit their teeth and vote 
for a couple things that are just not a good pairing.
  I can give an example of where it pained some people on the other 
side of the aisle. I am a big supporter of Second Amendment rights, but 
there was an amendment put on a credit card bill to allow concealed 
weapon permits in national parks. I firmly support allowing concealed 
weapons in national parks because they are so part and parcel to the 
State of Wyoming and to our right to bear arms, but attaching it to a 
credit card bill is wrong. It's just wrong.
  Mr. ROE of Tennessee. The gentlelady will remember our first weekend 
or two here when we, both the freshman Democrats and Republicans--and I 
might add that I think there are 33 new Democrats and 22 Republicans, I 
believe, is that correct? We have them outnumbered finally. I will 
point that out.
  You remember, we went there, and the economists told us, if we don't 
spend this money rapidly, the earth's going to end? I remember saying, 
Well, that sounds counterintuitive to me to spend your way to wealth. 
Well, guess what, the economy is beginning to turn around, thank 
goodness, I think, for a lot of people. The signs are feeble, but it 
looks like the economy may have bottomed out; and the same people are 
telling us in the third and fourth quarter that the economy probably 
will show some growth. We've spent less than 10 percent of the stimulus 
package. The economy did that on its own without the stimulus package. 
I think the target is what we were talking about earlier; and if we 
truly had done this, if we truly had looked at infrastructure. For 
example, the State of

[[Page 14095]]

Tennessee is going to get $55 million in water and sewer projects, and 
the small city of 60,000 people I am from is already putting $100 
million in the ground. So it was a spending bill that had some little 
bit of stimulus in it.
  Look at energy, for instance. If we had invested $100 billion, $200 
billion in nuclear power how much further along would we be to energy 
independence. We chose not to do that. In 2 years the money will be 
spent, and I don't think we will have much to show for it.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Luetkemeyer, this gets into an area that you're 
involved in deeply now. Any comments on either your service in the 
State legislature in Missouri and how you would compare it to process 
here in Washington and how process here in Washington impedes that or 
the energy issues specifically? Either one.
  Mr. LUETKEMEYER. Yes. The process in my home State where I served in 
the House both in the minority and in the majority, and in the 
leadership and as a committee chairman--so I have a pretty wide 
background there in the house. It's not unlike Missouri, but yet it's 
different. Here we don't necessarily run everything through committee. 
Another thing, it has to be germane. Not always are you allowed to 
offer amendments. It's an amazing process where I thought that it would 
be more open, more transparent. That was the promise from the 
administration, yet we see little of that. During the discussion here, 
it's been interesting to listen to all my colleagues and yourselves. 
They've got some great stories to tell and great perspectives on how we 
should be governing ourselves, how we, as a people, should be governing 
ourselves. And it's interesting to me that if you look at our 
Constitution, it says, ``We, the people.'' It doesn't say ``We, the 
government;'' and to me, I think that is very important. We stop and 
think about our framers. When they put this very special document 
together, this American experiment that they were trying, they said, 
``We, the people.'' They wanted the people to be where the power was, 
to be where the ability to control their lives was, not the government. 
It seems as though very quickly when you get here, the perspectives are 
clearly different. Here the government is where the power always 
emanates from, and they want everybody to be subservient to. It's that 
sort of mindset. It's that sort of situation that we find ourselves in 
here that I think is very frustrating to our constituents. They see 
this as well; and over the last several weeks as I've gone home, this 
concern continues to well up with regards to where we're going as a 
country, where we're going as a government. They don't see themselves 
as being a part of it anymore, and they want us to be their voice.
  It's an honor to serve them, and it's an honor to be here. But I 
think the perspective of this body needs to be that of serving people, 
rather than to be served. I sometimes think we get that switched 
around.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. The gentleman from Minnesota also was a leader in his 
State legislature. Observations comparing the two?
  Mr. PAULSEN. I thank the gentlelady for yielding. One of the biggest 
surprises and frustrations that I have noticed is that it's been a 
little bit more partisan than I ever thought it would be; and I can say 
that, having served in both the majority and the minority in the 
Minnesota State legislature; and I was majority leader for awhile. I 
think a lot of being a successful legislator and making yourself a 
successful State, and now a successful country, is being able to build 
relationships to get things done and be results-oriented. In the 
Minnesota Legislature we were always allowed to offer an amendment to a 
bill as long as it was germane, just as you were mentioning a little 
while ago. But here in Congress we have to get permission to offer an 
amendment from the Chair of the Rules Committee or from the Speaker of 
the House. So it's a very closed process, and it's not an open flowing 
process where I think it's easier to breed partisanship. I think if the 
rank-and-file Members, both Republican and Democrat, can get together 
to kind of break the grips of that leadership power, I think we could 
really do great things for the American people.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. We have other Members who are not here tonight who I'd 
like to mention. One was mentioned earlier by Mr. Rooney. Duncan 
Hunter, a member of our freshman class from California, quit his job 
after 9/11 to serve in the Marine Corps. He has served three combat 
tours, including two in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. And along with Mr. 
Rooney and Mr. Coffman of Colorado, who took unpaid leave from the 
Colorado State House to serve in the first Gulf War and gave up being 
Colorado State treasurer for a tour of duty in Iraq--and I was Wyoming 
State treasurer at the same time Mr. Coffman was State treasurer and at 
the same time when another of our fellow freshmen, Lynn Jenkins, was 
the State treasurer in Kansas. We were proud of our colleague, Mr. 
Coffman, for leaving his job as Colorado State treasurer to do a tour 
of duty in Iraq. The experience of our servicemen and -women in this 
Congress is invaluable, and I applaud them and appreciate their 
efforts.
  I want to call on Mr. Rooney one more time to discuss our specific 
concerns about the issue that prevents all of us from being here 
tonight, that being the fact that an amendment has been placed on a 
military funding bill that is not germane.
  Would you care to elaborate further? And then I would like to yield 
to Mr. Thompson.

                              {time}  2310

  Mr. ROONEY. Well, the bill that we had originally sent to the Senate 
was just a clean war funding bill that the President asked us for and 
that we delivered as a House of Representatives to the Senate.
  I did not serve in politics before running for Congress, so all this 
is new. But unfortunately, by the time it came back from the Senate to 
us, it had an additional amendment on it which included funding for the 
IMF, which is basically our borrowing money from somewhere else or 
printing money to loan it to another country. And that might seem 
ridiculous to a lot of people that may be listening, since everybody 
knows that America is going through tough times right now. People in my 
district are really hurting. The middle class needs help. They need tax 
cuts. They need to feel that their job is secure. They need to feel 
that the Federal Government is helping them, not impeding them. And to 
think that we are going to borrow or print money to send abroad, some 
of it to people that we might not necessarily want to lend money to, 
and have to put that on the backs of our servicemen and -women, because 
they know that it will be difficult for us as Republicans to vote 
against it, is really, in my opinion, shameful in a lot of ways.
  I understand there are differences in ideology. There are differences 
in principles about what governing should be. But if we have a clean 
military funding bill, then it should stand on its own. If you have a 
clean IMF bill to loan money to foreign countries, then it should stand 
on its own. The majority is the majority. If it is a good idea, it will 
pass. They have the Congress. They have the White House. Why should it 
be attached to something that has nothing to do with funding our 
soldiers abroad?
  I recently got back from Iraq and Afghanistan. Recently I visited 
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And the one thing that impressed me more than 
anything else is the men and women that wear our uniform. They never 
talk about politics. They never talk about policy or how they stand on 
certain issues. They are there to do a job. They are putting themselves 
in harm's way so we can stand here tonight and discuss these issues and 
talk about what we think is best for the future.
  To think that politics is being played with the ammunition that goes 
in their guns or the body armor or the vehicles that they drive or 
anything that they have to rely on from us as a Congress to pay for 
what we are sending them there to do is just unconscionable to me. And 
it is something that I hope, as you said earlier, has been delayed, and 
hopefully that delay is felt, continues on to next week, and maybe we 
can reconsider what we are doing and what we talk about. Politics 
should have no

[[Page 14096]]

place when it comes to funding what we send our men and women in 
uniform to do abroad.
  Whether you agree with these wars, whether you agree with the war on 
terror, whether you agree with anything that we are doing, we are 
sending them there. We should give them a clean bill. And as of right 
now, we are not. But maybe, just maybe, cooler heads will prevail and 
we will give them a clean bill for what they are doing and what they 
are serving us for.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. I would like to acknowledge two other Members of our 
Republican freshman class who have also served in the military: John 
Fleming, who is a family physician from Louisiana, was also a medical 
officer in the U.S. Navy; and Brett Guthrie, one of our colleagues from 
Kentucky, served as a field artillery officer in the 101st Airborne 
Division (Air Assault) at Fort Campbell. And we have other veterans as 
well.
  I want to turn now to a subject that is on the front burner in 
Congress, House and Senate, both energy and health care. And we have a 
wonderful array of talent in our class on both subjects. We have two 
medical care providers with us to discuss that issue. I know I was 
listening briefly to the Progressive Caucus before we had this little 
opportunity to visit this evening, and they were espousing the benefits 
that they see in providing health care by way of a government-funded 
option.
  I might point out before I turn it over to Mr. Thompson that 
government payers, and this was an independent study, found out that 
Medicaid and Medicare have shifted a total of $89 billion per year in 
costs on to other payers. As a result, families with private health, 
and I'm quoting from the study, families with private health insurance 
spend nearly $1,800 more per year, $1,512 in higher premiums and $276 
in increased beneficiary cost sharing to cover the below-market 
reimbursement levels paid by Medicare and Medicaid.
  My concern is, if we go to a government option that is side by side 
with private sector insurance, that it will be less expensive and it 
will recruit people to gravitate from private insurance to this 
government system. But the reason that it may be cheaper for the 
government to provide insurance is that they are continuing to shift 
costs and to fail to reimburse providers accurately and adequately.
  I know in my State of Wyoming, where health care is the number one 
issue right now, that there are physicians who are no longer accepting 
Medicare and Medicaid patients. They cannot afford to accept them 
anymore because reimbursement levels in rural hospitals and to rural 
physicians are so low. And if that is the manner in which our country 
intends to get ahold of the cost of health care, we are in big trouble.
  I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. First of all, I would be remiss if I 
didn't thank my good friend and colleague from Florida and also Mr. 
Hunter from California for your leadership in making sure that we don't 
compromise the bill that funds our troops' needs. As a Member of 
Congress and, frankly, as a proud father of a United States soldier, I 
thank you. I know my son, Logan, and his comrades thank you as well.
  Health care has been my life. For 28 years, I have worked in 
rehabilitation. That is how I got involved in public service actually, 
being frustrated with the Federal regulations that were being piled on 
the health care system that was decreasing access, increasing costs, 
and making the health care system more challenging. And that is the 
Federal system.
  We are blessed in this Republican freshman class, as you said, in 
terms of the tremendous health care experience that we have, and I 
think we have a lot to offer to this debate. Hopefully we will have 
access and opportunity to engage in that debate a little more than what 
we have had in the past. Huge issues have come before this body.
  Health care is a three-legged stool. It is about access, and that is 
what we hear a lot about today in terms of talking about the uninsured 
in today's debate. But it is access, affordability, and quality. I 
happen to believe, and I have seen evidence, that we have the best 
health care system in the world. I'm not saying that it is perfect and 
there is not opportunities that we can continue to improve upon it, but 
the Democratic proposals that are being bandied about and discussed 
would, in my opinion, in the long run, increase access issues and, 
frankly, lower the quality of care that we have all come to expect as 
Americans. This is a place where people come from around the world when 
they need life-saving, quality health care services.
  The other side would argue that this is to provide access to those 
who are currently uninsured. If we identify those individuals that make 
a decision to not purchase health care insurance but could afford it, 
and we eliminate those folks from that number, we are talking about 
approximately 9 percent of individuals who do not have insurance. And 
the lack of insurance does not necessarily mean that they don't have 
access to health care services.
  In my district, we have agencies such as federally qualified health 
centers. An agency that was just in to see me today near my home town 
is called the Tapestry of Health. We have another one called Centre 
Volunteers in Medicine that stand in the gap. Can we do better in 
health care? Absolutely. Absolutely. But do we need to ruin our health 
care system by reducing access and quality for all in doing this? 
Absolutely not. I think the Republican freshmen stand uniquely prepared 
to bring solutions based on real life medical experience and health 
care experience to this important debate.

                              {time}  2320

  My district is just like the rest of rural America. You know, our 
health care debate has to include things that aren't being talked about 
right now in this body, things like peeling away the regulations on 
health care that were instituted 40 years ago and have long since 
outlived their usefulness, and only serve to add cost and decrease 
access.
  We need to reduce the practice of defensive medicine by eliminating 
the fears of liability that our physicians have where they order tests 
because they need them as a part of, not the medical record, but the 
evidence record, should they be sued. And that is so frequent today.
  We need to level the reimbursement system, frankly, that I see as 
favoring urban big city health care over rural America, specifically on 
issues related to the wage index.
  We need to address the health care workforce crisis. I have not heard 
that addressed at all in this body, and yet we can redefine the payment 
system any way you want, but if you do not have qualified doctors and 
nurses and technicians and therapists to provide the services then 
there is no health care access. And today we are facing tremendous 
retirements with the baby boomer generation of those health care 
professionals.
  There are some real health care reform issues that we need to be 
addressing that just have not been, and I think this class is well 
prepared to bring that to the health care debate.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. I look forward to that discussion. Another of our 
colleagues, Dr. Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, in his practice, co-
founded a health clinic to match uninsured patients with doctors who 
provide services free of charge. So we have some very qualified, very 
caring medical care providers and physicians in our class, and I'm 
proud to serve with them.
  Of course, Doctor Phil, you are among them. Would you please comment 
on this subject.
  Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Just a couple of things that Congressman 
Thompson talked about. One, is accessibility to care, and that is the 
crisis of personnel. If you look in the next 20 years, over half of our 
registered nurses can and will retire. We'll need a million new 
registered nurses in the next 8 years.
  In the next 10 to 12 years there will be more physicians retiring and 
dying in this country than we're producing in this country. We are not 
investing in the medical infrastructure to increase the class size, and 
I don't know where that anybody thinks who's going to

[[Page 14097]]

provide this care. So that is very correct. It is a huge issue.
  The challenge here is affordable health care, and that's accessible 
to people. It's not going to be easy. I've dealt with this for over 30 
years, and this is going to be very, very complicated to do.
  We do not need to do this fast. We need to do it right. And I think 
that's one of the worries that I have is that we're going to go and 
have this arbitrary deadline of 60 days from now. Who says 60 days from 
now we should have this right, have it done? We need to get it right. 
If it takes 6 months we need to get it right because it affects every 
American.
  Let me just give you a couple of little examples. In this country, we 
have 47 million people that are uninsured. That's about 15 percent of 
our population.
  In the State of Tennessee several years ago, about 15, 16 years ago, 
we had a Medicaid waiver. And for those out there that understand what 
Medicaid is for the uninsured and poor in this country, and Medicare is 
for our citizens over 65, this was a Medicaid waiver to form a managed 
care plan called TennCare. And what it did was, it was a very rich 
blended plan that provided a lot of care for not much money. And what 
we found in the State was that 45 percent of the people who got on 
TennCare had private health insurance but dropped it.
  Well, then I asked the providers, what percent of your costs does 
TennCare actually pay in our district, in our area? And I went to 
several different hospital systems. About 60 percent. And Medicare pays 
about 90 percent. And as you pointed out very clearly, and then the 
uninsured pay somewhere in between.
  And what you pointed out very clearly was that what happens is that 
cost is shifted and more cost, so your private health insurance goes up 
each year, part of it not because of what you do, but because of what 
the government has done, which is not pay the freight. And my concern 
is, when we get a public plan that's ``competitive'', it also will 
offer a lot of benefits but won't pay the costs of the services, once 
again, causing a shift to the private health insurer, meaning they will 
be crowded out. And over time, I'm afraid you'll end up with a single-
payer system. And a single-payer system is not what the American 
people, I think, want. And certainly that's something that's going to 
be discussed in great detail in the future.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. I might mention the three officers of our freshman 
Republican class who couldn't join us this evening, and two of our more 
unique members who I hope will be able to join us if we have the 
opportunity to do this again. Our class president is Steve Austria of 
Ohio. He was a force in getting Jessica's Law and the Adam Walsh Child 
Protection Safety Act passed into State law. Our representative on the 
Steering Committee, Gregg Harper of, Mississippi, is an attorney with a 
child whom he has brought to share his unique health concerns with us. 
And we've all learned a lot from him.
  And of course, our Policy Committee representative, Jason Chaffetz, 
who is a former Division I football player at Brigham Young University, 
my University of Wyoming's nemesis, but a dear colleague of ours, and 
two wonderful freshmen who are plowing new ground. The very first 
Vietnamese American to serve in the United States Congress, Joseph Cao, 
born in Saigon, Vietnam, escaped at the age of 8 to the United States, 
lost his home during Katrina, and fought to return electricity and 
telecommunications to Louisiana residents after Katrina.
  We also boast the youngest Member of this U.S. House of 
Representatives, Aaron Schock, the youngest school board president, 
Illinois State Rep, and a Member of Congress with whom we are 
privileged to serve.
  I thank the gentlemen for joining me this evening. I thank our 
Speaker, the gentleman from Virginia, who was very patient with his 
fellow freshmen colleagues from the other party, and look forward to 
the opportunity to have a bipartisan freshman discussion at an early 
opportunity.

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