[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 5774-5781]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  1815
                       30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Murphy) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, we are here to convene what 
has unfortunately become a little bit more infrequent in this 
legislative session, our 30-Something Working Group. We're so glad that 
the Speaker of the House has once again convened the 30-Something 
members of the Democratic Caucus to work on issues affecting not only 
our generation of Americans who are struggling like everyone else with 
this very difficult economy, but also on behalf of all Americans who 
are crying out right now to the Obama administration, to this Congress, 
to both Democrats and Republicans, to step up to the plate and help 
them start making ends meet.
  And we're going to be here today with my colleague, Mr. Altmire--
hopefully we will be joined a little bit later by one of our new 
members of the 30-Something Caucus, Mr. Boccieri--to discuss really 
what I think is becoming a historic moment in this Nation's history as 
President Obama challenges this Congress and this Nation to do two 
things; to step up to the plate and enact short-term stimulus to create 
jobs in this country, to put people back to work, to make banks start 
lending again, and to get our economy recovering, but also to do 
something else; to recognize that this economy has been imperiled for a 
very long time by a weak energy policy, by a crippling health care 
system with rising costs, and a relative lack of investment in 
education compared to those countries that we compete with. And his 
challenge to us last night was to do what we need to do now and to come 
together to rebuild this economy in the short term, but also in the 
long term.
  Now, Madam Speaker and my colleagues, I got to hear just the end of 
the presentation of our colleagues who spoke before us on the floor. 
And it is, I think, amazing to many of us to see this newfound interest 
on behalf of the Republicans on this floor of the issue of fiscal 
responsibility and deficit reduction.
  As President Obama pointed out last night, this administration has 
inherited the largest debt in the history of this Nation. Coming after 
the Bush administration, which took a national debt from $4 trillion to 
nearly $10 trillion, who racked up more debt for this Nation in one 
administration of 8 years than every single other President combined, 
that's what this Congress inherits.
  The Republicans who controlled this House for 12 years sat by idly as 
our children and our grandchildren were put in hock. They ignored the 
growing weakness of our health care system and the burden that it 
placed on small businesses. They ignored the fact that our energy 
system was being held hostage by those who produce oil and gas 
overseas. And they let our education system and our investments therein 
wither away, as Head Start got cut, as special education funding got 
cut, as higher education and financial aid funding got cut. And all of 
a sudden we woke up overnight to the fact that our economy was in great 
peril and that we owed $10 trillion to the rest of the world.
  For 8 years, the Republicans and the President stood here on the 
floor of this House and down Pennsylvania Avenue in the White House and 
allowed all of this to happen, meanwhile, pursuing a system of vast 
deregulation and laissez-faire policies on Wall Street, which then 
ultimately created the crisis that occurred last summer. A lack of 
investment in health care reform, an inattention to energy policy, and 
a withdrawal from education investment combined with a strategy of 
whatever Wall Street wants Wall Street gets, and we find ourselves 
where we are today.
  So I appreciate hearing from our Republican friends that now we 
should start paying attention to the debt. We absolutely should. And 
President Obama set a mission before us last night to halve the 
American deficit in the next 4 years. We're going to accept that 
challenge. But the fact is that the Republicans are Johnny-come-
latelies to this debate. We wouldn't be in the situation that we are 
today if we had had more friends on the Republican

[[Page 5775]]

side of the aisle who practiced what they preached when it came to 
fiscal responsibility.
  It's the very reason why Mr. Altmire and Mr. Boccieri and myself are 
here. We were sent to Congress to fix this mess. We were sent here to 
represent districts that were represented by Republicans for a very 
long time because people in our districts are waking up to the notion 
that if they really cared about the debt that was being levied on their 
kids, that maybe it wasn't the Republican Party that was best to carry 
that banner.
  We're going to talk about positive steps that this country and this 
Congress can take from here on out to start lessening that burden. 
We're going to tighten our belts, we're going to get our revenue and 
expenditure policy straight, we're going to start stimulating this 
economy again. We're going to talk about positive things. And I bet you 
there is going to be plenty of opportunity for Republicans and 
Democrats to agree on that. But I think we should also agree on what 
the history of this institution is and the fact that this President and 
this Democratic Congress inherited an absolute fiscal mess from the 
Republicans.
  So I appreciate the charts and the graphs and the Newsweek covers and 
the political cartoons that get brought up here in the Republican 
Special Orders, but there is a certain amount of revisionist history 
that's happening here. And the 30-Somethings have always been about 
trying to talk about how we can move forward, but also about making the 
record very clear for the American people. And I think it is 
appropriate that we do a little bit of both today, that we talk about 
our path forward--the very difficult one that we are going to have to 
chart--but we also make it very clear what the division is on these 
issues and what our history has been, Mr. Altmire.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. And I thank the gentleman from Connecticut. And the 
gentleman is absolutely correct on a number of points. He mentioned 
that he came to this Chamber for this discussion just as the previous 
group was wrapping up. I had been here a little bit longer and got to 
hear some of what they had to say, Mr. Murphy and Madam Speaker.
  Mr. Murphy mentioned that we have a Republican Party that is joining 
the debate and having the discussion. I didn't hear a whole lot of 
joining the debate going on. I heard a lot of, as the gentleman from 
Connecticut said, revisionist history. And one of the items of 
revisionist history that I'm most intrigued by that you hear not just 
during these Special Order debates, but from talk show hosts around the 
country, and others, is the revisionist history that Franklin Roosevelt 
had nothing to do with the recovery that took place after the Great 
Depression. I don't recall learning that in school when I was growing 
up. I don't recall that talking point being a part of the discussion. 
But now we're hearing a lot about, well, the New Deal really didn't 
work, and nothing that was accomplished by that administration solved 
any of the issues that they inherited during the Great Depression.
  And I think about that when I hear some of the discussion that our 
colleagues on the other side bring to these Special Orders. And many of 
them have become friends and colleagues and people that I admire. But 
the discussion that I hear, I wouldn't consider that to be a debate. I 
don't think that we're hearing good faith efforts to reach compromise 
and to work together. I think what we're seeing is a lot of finger 
pointing. I think we're seeing a lot of blame being cast around and a 
lot of passing the buck because, as Mr. Murphy said, we have not yet 
heard anyone own up to the fact that this Nation is in the economic 
crisis that it is in today because of the policies of the very recent 
past. And we can point fingers and we can cast blame, and that's not 
what this is about, that's not what we're doing today.
  But it is instructive to think about how we got to where we are. And 
when you hear prescriptions being put forward for getting us out of 
this incredibly deep ditch that we find ourselves in, the people who 
are bringing forward these prescriptions have a record, they have a 
record of success or not. So I think the reason it's instructive to 
look at the decisions that were made in this Congress that led us to 
where we are today, when you hear people stand on the floor and say, 
here's my point of view, this is where I'm coming from, this is the way 
I think we can get ourselves out of this economic situation, let's take 
a walk down memory lane. Let's think about, well, what is that person's 
track record in voting for economic plans?
  And I do want to remind Mr. Murphy and Madam Speaker that we have a 
country now, eight straight budget deficits, these deficits are now 
forecast as far as the eye can see, we all know that. And we're going 
to talk about the economic recovery plan tonight and we're going to 
talk about the details of what was in that plan and what was not in 
that plan, equally important. Because I heard a lot of discussion about 
things that weren't even related to what was in the economic recovery 
plan. We'll have that discussion in a moment.
  But what's important to think about when you consider what 
individuals have credibility and what groups have credibility when 
talking about the budget deficit and which do not, it has to do with 
the fact that these eight straight budget deficits that we've had 
followed four consecutive budget surpluses that President Bush 
inherited. And one of the things about the economic situation that we 
find ourselves in is when we get out of this--and we will, as a Nation, 
get ourselves out of this, as the President said last night--when we 
get out of this, we're going to be able to step back and look at the 
fiscal policies that worked and didn't, and look at the people who were 
in power that made those decisions that led to success and lack of 
success on the economy. Because it's a pretty clear discussion that you 
have when you say, here's the economy that President Clinton had, a 
very slow economy, to put it kindly. He had an enormous budget 
deficit--the largest budget deficit ever recorded was under President 
Bush's father up to that time--President Clinton inherited that 
situation. When President Clinton left office, the four straight budget 
surpluses that I was just discussing--and those surpluses were forecast 
as far as the eye can see, the 10-year budget projection, as we've 
talked about many times, Mr. Murphy, was $5.6 trillion over 10 years. 
That was in surplus. If we had just kept in place the fiscal policies 
that we had at that time when President Bush put his hand on the Oath 
of Office--Bush 43--if we had just kept in place those fiscal policies, 
we could have nearly paid down the entire national debt as it existed 
to that time now 8 years later. But of course we didn't keep those 
fiscal policies in place, we went in a completely different direction, 
which is the way it works; when one party controls the White House, 
they implement certain policies, when one party controls Congress, they 
implement certain policies. When the same party controls both the White 
House and Congress at the same time--as happened during the first 6 
years of President Bush's term--they chose to take the economy in a 
completely different direction, and boy did they ever. The economy went 
in a completely different direction than those four straight budget 
surpluses and one of the fastest periods of expansion and growth in 
economic history in America.
  So now we find ourselves with a new administration. And yes, that 
administration has a Congress that is of the same party affiliation, 
and we will see how that plays out. But where I'm going with this, Mr. 
Murphy, is, policy discussions in the future, you will be able to see 
very clearly what happened during the Clinton administration with the 
economy, what happened during the Bush administration; where did they 
begin, what did they leave their successor? And of course history has 
yet to be written about where President Obama leaves the economy. But I 
think it's safe to say it couldn't possibly be worse than what he 
inherited.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Would the gentleman yield? And you have to 
look at all of the different ways that we got here and all of the 
different

[[Page 5776]]

ways we can start to repair this. And I just think of one right now. 
You talk about what would have happened if we just continued the 
policies of the Clinton administration. Obviously one of the things 
that changed the financial dynamic in this country is the fact that we 
decided to go wage a $700 billion war. And if that wasn't bad enough, 
we did it all off budget.
  And that's one of the great untold stories of the Bush 
administration. No matter what you think about the war in Iraq--whether 
you think that we should have never gone, that we should have left 
earlier, that we should leave now, that we should stay for another 5 
years--the fact was that maybe the first year of funding could have 
been deemed emergency off-budget funding, and maybe even the second 
year, but in the third and the fourth and the fifth and the sixth year, 
this wasn't a surprise to anybody. But one of the ways that we masked 
the amount of money that we were using for that war was we put it all 
off budget, and so it didn't make the annual deficit look as bad as it 
really was.

                              {time}  1830

  With one stroke of a pen, President Obama changed that. He said, you 
know what, no matter how bad it's going to make the numbers look on a 
yearly basis, we've got to start having some honest books here. We have 
got to start having some real accounting. So President Obama said, 
listen, from here on out, and he said this last night in his speech and 
he said it when he made this change in budgeting rules on Friday, we're 
going to put the cost of the war in both Iraq and Afghanistan online. 
It's going to be part of the budget; so we're going to have to pay for 
it. We're going to have to pay for it.
  Now, frankly, Mr. Altmire and Mr. Boccieri, when it comes to 
protecting the American people, I think people are willing to step up 
to the plate and make some sacrifices to do that. Now, we may disagree 
about what that entails, but in the days after September 11, this 
country was ready to step up and sacrifice. This country was ready to 
step up and pay for whatever it took to protect this country. And I 
really congratulate President Obama for stepping forward and saying, 
listen, yes, I want to get out of Iraq; yes, I think I need to step up 
our commitment in Afghanistan; but for however long that takes and 
however much it costs, we're going to do it in the confines of a 
budget. We're going to have an honest budget, an honest document. The 
American people are going to see the numbers however raw or bad or ugly 
they may be, but we're going to be honest about it.
  And I think that's what people out there are asking for, Mr. Altmire. 
I mean we're back in our districts every weekend, and as bad off as 
people are right now, as difficult as the times are, I think they're 
willing to sort of see a path forward. They know it's going to be hard, 
but they want to know how hard it is, how big the challenge is, and 
then they are, I think, ready to step up. But we've been masking the 
problem up until now. And I think President Obama has got some room 
right now in order to basically put it all on the table, be honest with 
the people about what the problem is, and then ask us to step up to the 
plate and solve it.
  And he's facing right now Republican opposition, if I may make one 
more point, whose answer to every solution is let's do nothing. 
Everybody on the Democratic side has agreed or disagreed with different 
parts of the economic recovery strategy, but at least we're over here 
trying to think of a way out of this. The response from the other side 
has been essentially to just sit back and let the economy tumble into 
chaos. The American people want action. They want to know how big the 
problem is, and they want to step up to the plate and help solve it, 
Mr. Altmire.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the gentleman.
  And as I indicated earlier, one of the things that I think the 
American people find so troubling about the direction the debate is 
taking, let alone the policy implications, is exactly what the 
gentleman from Connecticut talked about, that there appears to be a 
strategy of betting on success for the Democratic side and the 
Republican side appears to be betting on failure. I will leave it to 
others to speculate on what their desire is for the outcome. We will 
trust their motivations, but they certainly think that we're in failure 
mode.
  Now, I find that to be very troubling because I want to have a 
Congress that works together where all sides are heard. And President 
Obama made every effort to reach out to the Republicans and solicit 
their opinions. And I do think, Madam Speaker, that when you hear 
things like we heard earlier, a discussion on how this economic 
recovery plan that we passed was going to lead to government-run health 
care, well, there is no provision in that recovery plan that alludes 
to, relates to, correlates to, leads to government-run health care. It 
is not in the bill that we passed, which is now law. There is no 
provision for the field mouse in San Francisco that we heard so much 
about. There are no earmarks in the bill. We heard when the President 
referenced earmarks, there was derision from the other side last night 
during the President's remarks, which I think the American people find 
disingenuous because there are no earmarks in the bill. There are zero 
earmarks.
  So when I'm thinking about how I'm going to vote and I'm thinking 
through what's in the bill and what my constituents want me to do and I 
have people weigh in with an opinion, one of the things I'm going to 
consider is what's their motivation in offering that opinion, but is it 
an informed opinion? And if an individual comes up to me and complains 
to me about field mice in San Francisco or earmarks in the bill or how 
the bill is going to lead to universal health care, it's pretty clear 
that person has either not been truthful about what's in the bill or 
not made an effort to learn what's in the bill. Neither of those leads 
to good policy decisions. And I think that's what the gentleman from 
Connecticut and I are getting to.
  So I am going to have the very, very high honor at this time of doing 
something that we don't do very often here in the 30-Somethings. We 
have five core members, Ms. Wasserman Schultz from Florida, Mr. Ryan 
from Ohio, Mr. Meek from Florida, who are the leaders and the 
originators of the group from back before Mr. Murphy and I were able to 
win election to this House. Mr. Murphy and I have participated and are 
going into our second term now. So we are very honored tonight, and as 
everyone knows, Madam Speaker, who watches this over the airwaves, we 
have just a tremendous fan base for the 30-Somethings. There are 
countless individuals.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. At last count, Mr. Altmire, it was up to 
seven.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. A handful of people that do actually pay attention to 
the 30-Something Group. So for them this is a very exciting moment 
because we are tonight going to initiate a new Member into the 30-
Somethings with his maiden 30-Something speech, a great Member also 
from Ohio; so he is very close geographically to both Mr. Ryan and my 
district, which is in Pennsylvania. And at this time for all of those 
30-Something junkies that are out there and pay attention to what we 
have to say, the very small group that that is, I would turn it over to 
Mr. Boccieri from Ohio.
  Mr. BOCCIERI. Thank you, Mr. Altmire, and thank you, Mr. Murphy, for 
allowing me to participate in this great experience of serving in the 
House of Representatives here. It's truly an honor and truly a 
privilege for a grandson of a carpenter and a coal miner and a 
steelworker, who my parents were the first in their families to go to 
college and I have two successful brothers. One's a chemist and a 
pharmacist and the other is in the military. So to serve here is truly 
an honor.
  And, Madam Speaker, I will tell you that people are listening and 
they do care and they do want to learn about what we're doing here in 
the House of Representatives. And I said this when we were debating the 
American Recovery Act and the bill that was going to help put America 
first. We talked

[[Page 5777]]

about how this great Nation is in a great recession and that we are 
finding ourselves in nearly almost double-digit unemployment in Ohio, a 
great State, a great manufacturing State that has suffered 
disproportionately to the rest of the country. We have seen jobs pack 
up and move overseas, families struggle. We have seen families lose 
entire pensions, lose their way in terms of finding health care for 
their family, being able to put bread on the table. And I will tell you 
the good people of Ohio want to work. They want a job. They want to 
punch a time clock. They want to carry a lunch pail because they 
believe that hard work and perseverance are what has built this country 
and made it strong and made it what it is today.
  But yet we find the decisions that we have made here, and both 
Democrats and Republicans, in my humble opinion, share the culpability 
of this, but the decisions that we have made here need to empower our 
country, empower our workforce so that we can build roads and bridges 
and build the new technologies of tomorrow right here in our great 
State, like what is happening in Pennsylvania, like what is happening 
in Connecticut, in the northeast, in New Hampshire. All over this 
country, we have people who believe, like my grandparents did, that 
with a little bit of hard work and perseverance that America is the 
place where your hopes and dreams could be realized. And they played by 
the rules. They punched the time clock. They worked for 30 years at a 
steel mill. But yet when that company packs up and moves overseas and 
they give all the money back to the holders of their common stock and 
the like and those folks who have invested in the company, but yet the 
people by the sweat of their brow punched the time clock, helped build 
America for what it is today are left with nothing when that company 
packs up and moves overseas, like we have seen repeated over and over 
and over again in Ohio.
  And it's time that our generation of Americans stands up and demands 
more and demands that we put America first, that we invest in our 
workforce, our greatest asset of people, that we invest in the things 
that are going to make our country and our economy stronger.
  And I pledge to you, as a 30-Something here with this great, fine 
distinguished group of legislators, that we will work to find answers 
to things that plague America, that challenge America, but not answers 
that will divide us along a partisan divide because at the end of the 
day, these are not Democrat or Republican challenges, they're not 
conservative or liberal challenges; they're American challenges. And 
they deserve an answer from both sides of the aisle. But we can't have 
the same politics of yesterday if we are looking towards tomorrow. And 
that's what I hope this group speaks about. That is what I hope this 
group will continue to champion.
  I have heard you on the floor before I was ever a congressman. I've 
seen both of you stand up for what is right and what is honorable for 
our country to move forward.
  And as a matter of point for this Economic Recovery Act, I will tell 
you this: That I think America is obviously in a great recession, and 
we will be judged as Members elected to lead this Nation in two 
measures: by action or inaction. And I challenge my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle who just want to talk about small parts of this 
bill that perhaps may draw a little bit of emotion but when you look at 
the entirety of the bill, it's about investing in our country, in our 
people, and what will make America and our economy stronger. And we 
will be judged by what we do, whether we act or whether we don't, 
whether we block or whether we lead.
  But we didn't hear from those who are opposing this when we spent a 
trillion dollars in Iraq to rebuild roads and bridges over there to 
make sure that they have new wastewater treatment facilities, new 
hospitals. We didn't hear about the fact that we're spending 
unbelievable amounts of money to make sure that they have the access to 
capital over in this country. While they're running up surpluses with 
their oil revenue, we're running down deficits. And in 2004 former 
President George Bush's Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy 
Thompson, flew to Iraq with one of many billion dollar checks in hand 
to make sure that every man, woman, and child in Iraq had universal 
health care coverage. A trillion dollars, my fellow Americans, are over 
in Iraq making sure that Iraqis have universal health care coverage 
while we have families in Ohio that right now will not send their kids 
to the dentist because they can't afford it because they lost their 
job. There's a huge disconnect.
  So we need to understand, are we going to block or are we going to 
lead? Are we going to invest in our people and in America or are we 
going to rebuild Iraq? This is a defining moment for our country 
because a trillion dollars invested in our country at the end of the 
day is going to make our country stronger.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Boccieri, you're seeing on the ground 
in Ohio what Mr. Altmire is seeing in Pennsylvania, what I'm seeing. 
People look at Connecticut sometimes and they have an image of 
Connecticut as one big suburb of New York and they think that we're all 
set and the economic downturn isn't going to affect a place like that. 
Let me tell you there are cities in my district, small cities of 50, 
60, 70,000 people, that started this recession at 12 or 13 percent 
unemployment. That's what's going on even in Connecticut where you look 
at the per capita income across the board, and we are one of the 
wealthier States in the Nation. We have pockets of unemployment and 
poverty that will rival any other place in this Nation. They are cities 
in my district that used to be the brass city and the silver city and 
the hardware city, places that made things. Well, they don't make 
things anymore, in part because of the neglect that the prior 
administration showed for our manufacturing base as they allowed these 
jobs to bleed out into our foreign competitors. We didn't reinvest. We 
didn't protect our manufacturing base, but we also didn't try to find 
what was next.
  And what President Obama talked about last night was, as I said at 
the outset, a twofold strategy. Let's put a plug in the dike right now. 
Let's stop this bleeding of jobs. This stimulus package that we 
supported is going to create or save 3.5 million jobs in this country, 
thousands of jobs in each of our congressional districts. But it's also 
going to start us on a path forward to try to replace a lot of the lost 
manufacturing base, much of which may not be coming back. President 
Obama said, listen, energy, clean, green technologies can be the future 
of this country, and he challenged us as a Congress to step up to the 
plate and chart a new path forward.
  Mr. Boccieri, you rightly said that the real focus of this group, the 
30-Something Group, needs to be on trying to talk about how we can come 
together. We would have loved for some of our Republicans to join us on 
the stimulus package that, by the way, in a new poll that came out has 
shown to be supported by 65 percent of Americans. By a 2-1 margin they 
support this stimulus bill. They are just as concerned about the debt 
as they are about any subject out there, but they recognize the need to 
do something right now.

                              {time}  1845

  And we came down here in the first days of the last session, as we 
pursued our ``100 Hours Agenda'' of starting to roll back a lot of the 
damaging policies of the Republican Congress. And we showed that, on 
bill after bill, we had Republicans supporting us on every single one 
of those measures, whether it was the minimum wage, whether it was the 
College Affordability Act, whether it was the stem cell legislation, 
the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission being implemented. We had 
dozens and dozens of Republicans supporting us on all of those 
measures.
  And we are going to get that type of bipartisan cooperation again, 
because what we are going to put out there, what President Obama is 
going to place before the Congress is going to be an agenda for 
America, whether you are

[[Page 5778]]

represented by a Republican or a Democrat.
  So I know there is a lot of focus on the cable news shows right now, 
Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, on the division in this place. But I do 
believe, Mr. Boccieri, that we are going to chart a course forward, 
both in the short term and the long term, that can bring both of these 
parties together.
  But we've got to convince our Republicans that the solution is not, 
as you put the dichotomy, inaction; that they have got to commit 
themselves, and the American people wants them to, to action. Once they 
do that, we will be able to forge a path together.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. The gentleman was correct in pointing out where the 
middle-class Americans in this country were before this recession even 
started. And the economic policies that were in place actually led to a 
decrease in real dollars of median household income over the 8 years 
President Bush was in office. And that was the case even before the 
recession started in December of 2007, a real decrease in median 
household income over the term in office.
  Now, that's not something that people in western Pennsylvania want to 
hear. That's something that was a cause of alarm that was not dealt 
with in previous Congresses or by the administration.
  And, unfortunately, what we had was, in the early part of the 
administration especially, the enormous spending that took place, 
without pay-as-you-go budget scoring--which we have talked about many 
times--without that offset that says, very simply, you have to have 
money on one side of the ledger if you want to decrease revenue or 
spend more money on the other. It's a very simple concept. We all do it 
in our own home checkbooks and every business in America has to do it, 
balance budgets. If you want to spend more, you have to pay for it 
somewhere else in the budget.
  Well, that wasn't happening, and the outrageous spending that took 
place, running up literally trillions of dollars in debt, was running 
the country on a credit card. We have talked many times about the 
policies that were put into place as a result of that, all the spending 
that took place. They were running the country on a credit card. Well, 
guess what? Like any credit card that any American would use, 
eventually the bill comes due. And that's what this recession is about. 
The bill has come due.
  Now, with any credit card, there is interest that's accumulated with 
that. And we have talked before and it's incredibly important to the 
discussion to think about when you think, where are we going to go with 
this stimulus plan, is this the right course of action. One of the 
largest line items in the entire Federal budget is interest on the 
national debt. It's going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 
billion this budget year for just interest on the national debt--$300 
billion. That's a lot of money. That's money that's going to interest.
  And that's because of the decisions that had been made in the past, 
but there is nothing we can do about that. There is nothing we can do 
about what was in place when President Obama took office and when the 
111th Congress took office. But what we can do something about is where 
do we go from here. So we have talked enough about how we got here. 
Where do we go from here?
  It was the vast majority of the American people and certainly the 
majority of both the House and the Senate believed that the best course 
of action was to immediately inject some funding into the economy, yes, 
in the temporary way that's going to increase our debt even more, which 
is what we heard from the previous special order. But the cost of doing 
nothing would have increased the debt even more.
  Because when you have a downward spiral in the economy like we have, 
when you lose 500,000 jobs in November, 550,000 in December, 600,000 in 
January, and you see that that is going to be the continuing process if 
we do nothing, those are people that are no longer taxpayers, because 
they are out of work. Those are people that, in many cases, are now 
receiving social services, often Federal money; that, instead of paying 
into the system, are receiving from the system by the hundreds of 
thousands every month with no end in sight, if we do nothing.
  The economy, the economic slowdown, the lack of credit, the 
foreclosures that take place, all of that, along with unemployment, 
increases our debt more in the long term and even the short term than 
we had to do with our stimulus. So that's what that was about. It was 
about putting money back in the hands of the American people through 
tax cuts that affect 95 percent of the American people, a tax cut for 
95 percent.
  It's about putting money in every sector of the economy, spreading it 
and casting that net as wide as we possibly could to connect to every 
community in the country and make sure that they can share in the 
economic recovery that we hope this plan leads to.
  There is no guarantee of what that level of success is going to be. 
In fact, there is no guarantee of success at all. We are very hopeful, 
but there is one guarantee: If we had done nothing, the situation would 
get worse. That is the guarantee.
  Mr. Boccieri.
  Mr. BOCCIERI. I agree with the gentleman from Pittsburgh. I have 
heard from all of our orientations and briefings that we received from 
nearly 200 economists, the most conservative to the most liberal, have 
all said that the United States Government has to do something.
  And there's only two things that we can do. We can work with the 
administration and the Federal Reserve to manage interest rates so 
people can get an auto loan, so they can go and take out a student loan 
or go to college, or they can take out a mortgage and buy that dream 
home that they have always wished for, or we can inject huge amounts of 
capital into the market to help stimulate the economy, to help recover 
our economy. This isn't going to be the be-all and end-all of economic 
woes.
  In fact, I have told many Ohioans that this will act as a backstop 
against further job loss and create jobs along the way and invest in 
America. And that's what it should be about.
  I mean, leadership is about action, not just a position. Leadership 
is about action. And when we take action to invest in our people, 
invest in our roads, rebuild our bridges, rebuild our schools, and 
invest in what is our greatest asset, the American people, we are going 
to make our country stronger.
  And Senator Webb said in his book recently--I will throw him a shout-
out here, you know, Senator Webb said the health of a nation, the 
health of a society should not be measured at its apex or at its top, 
but at its base, at its base. Because that's where the majority of the 
people work every day to make the living, live the American dream. And 
they are what are America is about, the hope and promise of America 
that was often talked about on the campaign trail last year.
  You know, I just look at my family's history. The hope and promise of 
America is in my family. And they have worked so hard to allow that to 
happen, but they couldn't have done that without a strong government 
that understands that measured approaches to help put our people back 
to work, measured approaches that will invest in key things and 
strategic things that are going to make our economy stronger and our 
people stronger are about what we should do.
  And I can tell you that when we look at this American Recovery and 
Reinvestment Act, it's just exciting what we are talking about doing 
here. And the President said this yesterday in his speech to the 
Nation, when he said that we are going to have a visionary approach to 
how we approach the 21st-century economy.
  Those green energy jobs, that in 3 years we are going to double our 
green energy production. We are going to invest in plug-in hybrids like 
we are researching right here in the 16th Congressional District in 
Ohio. We are going to invest in fuel-cell technology like we are doing 
right in the 16th District in Ohio. And we are going to invest in 
biomass research like we are

[[Page 5779]]

doing in the 16th Congressional District.
  Those are going to create jobs back home. Those are going to put 
people to work, move away from our dependence on foreign oil. And God 
only knows that we need to move away from our dependence on foreign 
oil. Forty percent of our Nation's demand comes from the Middle East, 
and we allow our country to be subject to what OPEC decides for us? No, 
we can inject this capital to create the jobs of tomorrow and move away 
from our dependence by research and technology.
  This is what we have done. This is what we have done to make our 
country stronger. So I submit to you that leadership is about action 
and not just position. We have to do something to make our country 
stronger.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Boccieri, just to give you a little 
perspective on what the folks that are running local governments, the 
folks that are at the real foundation of our system that are struggling 
every day with this company going out of business or this company not 
being able to expand, let me tell you what they are saying, all right?
  The mayor of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Tom Beehan, says, ``The stimulus 
package is going to be huge for Oak Ridge. There is money in the 
stimulus package for environmental cleanup, and it's heading this 
way.''
  The mayor of Columbus, Ohio, Michael Coleman, says, ``The stimulus 
package will stop the freefall, and it is going to lead to growth in 
the future.''
  The Phoenix mayor, Phil Gordon, ``This will actually create jobs with 
the private sector in all different areas.''
  Alabama State Representative Jimmy Martin says, ``Until the stimulus 
passed, Alabama was looking at laying off 8,000 teachers next year, 
increasing class sizes to historic proportions and, in the process, 
wiping out the progress we've made in the past 5 years. The stimulus 
package will change that reality.''
  And the Wisconsin insurance commissioner, Sean Dilweg, says, ``We 
know the cost of health care premiums for unemployed workers makes it 
difficult for them to purchase coverage. The COBRA subsidy in the 
stimulus bill will make it much easier for families to continue their 
health care coverage.''
  These are local leaders with boots on the ground talking about how 
this is going to affect their community. They are backed up, as I said, 
by the 65 percent of Americans, in today's survey, that support this 
bill as well.
  And, Mr. Boccieri, talking again about that contrast between action 
and inaction, well, for those of us who listened not only to President 
Obama's address last night but listened to the Republican response, 
listened to our former colleague here, Bobby Jindal, give the response 
to that speech, well, you know, maybe we are not giving him enough 
credit, there were a couple of alternatives that they posed, but 
essentially the alternatives were to go back to the economic philosophy 
and the economic strategy that got us into this mess in the first 
place.
  The alternative to our plan for action seems to alternate between 
inaction or a reversal back to the policies of the Bush administration; 
in effect, trying to use and leverage this economic crisis as a means 
to further decrease taxes for people in this country making enormous 
incomes who, frankly, right now in this moment of economic crisis, 
don't need that additional subsidy from the government.
  I think, going forward, that we are going to have cooperation here. I 
think, as our friends on the other sides of the aisle do go back to 
their districts, they are going to hear a command from their 
constituents to come to the table and try to be a part of the solution. 
They are going to hear what I just enunciated for my colleagues from 
local officials who are crying out for this help in the private sector 
and, frankly, on the public side.
  This package is going to predominantly, to a large extent, create 
jobs in the private sector. That's our focus right now. But it is also 
going to protect the jobs of some teachers and some firefighters and 
some cops out there that our communities badly need, Mr. Altmire.
  It's a prescription to get this economy back up and started towards 
recovery. Mr. Boccieri is right; you know, this isn't salvation, this 
is a life raft. This is something that is going to be able to bridge us 
to real recovery. And I hope that, in the end, we are going to get a 
little bit more bipartisan cooperation on it, Mr. Altmire.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the gentleman.
  Tomorrow, on Thursday, we expect the President to drop off his budget 
here in the Congress so we can all have a look at the details of the 
plan that were discussed last night.
  And what I find so exciting and so refreshing about the approach that 
we are going to see with this budget is we are going to consider the 
economic policies, moving forward, in their entirety. What are some of 
the major issues that affect every family, every individual, every 
small business, every business in this country? Well, energy, health 
care, and education. Those are three things that have been neglected 
for a very long time in Congresses both Republican and Democrat.
  But that is over, because we have a President, as we heard last 
night, who understands that the only long-term solution to the economic 
problems that we have today is to solve our energy crisis, our 
dependence on foreign oil that Mr. Boccieri referred to.
  We have to find a way to improve our health care delivery system, to 
increase access, so that we don't have 43 million Americans that lack 
any health insurance, we don't have small businesses that experience 
double-digit cost increases year after year. Less than half of small 
businesses in the country are able to offer health care to their 
employees at all.
  And by including in the discussion on the economy health care, 
energy, and education, we are taking a comprehensive look at the future 
of America, at the issues that are going to allow America to remain the 
preeminent Nation in the world for knowledge and innovation and 
technology.
  And that's something that, by looking at it together, we are going to 
be able to continue that success, dig our way out of the ditch that we 
are in right now with the economy, but not forget about the issues that 
have to be a part of that, moving forward, including a look at 
government spending, as we have talked about, and the other policy 
issues.
  Mr. Boccieri.
  Mr. BOCCIERI. Thank you.
  The gentleman from Pennsylvania is very appropriate in his remarks. 
And I will tell you that, you know, from a freshman's perspective, I 
think this bill that made it through the Congress was the eighth wonder 
of the world. And you out there listening may wonder why: Because there 
were no earmarks in the bill, and there were no earmarks to specific 
districts in the bill.
  And I considered that the eighth wonder of the world, because Article 
I, section 1 of the Constitution said the Congress will make 
appropriations. We will appropriate the funds for the projects, for the 
public policy that we believe is most important to move our country 
forward.
  We talked about financial stability a little bit, about how we need 
to make our economy stronger.

                              {time}  1900

  Well, it comes with prudent reforms that we need to make within Wall 
Street, within the stock market, because it doesn't make any sense at 
all from this economics major at St. Bonaventure University, the fact 
that we are allowing speculators to drive our economy.
  The laws of supply and demand have seemingly been thrown out the 
window, and we are allowing people to bet on the price of fuel going 
up, people to bet on the price of commodities going up, like grain and 
cereals and those sorts of things, bet on people foreclosing, bet on 
people failing to pay their mortgage. To me, that sounds like a recipe 
for disaster, and we need some stability in our financial markets, and 
we need an administration like President Obama is going to enact to 
make sure that the Securities and

[[Page 5780]]

Exchange Commission and those regulatory agencies for our financial 
markets are going to do the jobs that we empowered them to do and to 
bring to justice those people who are manipulating the economy.
  I can tell you that many people are struggling back home. In fact, 
people are working so hard. In fact, a recent study that was done late 
last year found that people of average means, average working-class 
families, are working 18 percent harder, yet their wages have started 
to decline and stagnate and go down while their tax burden has gone up.
  Now, the top 1 percent of the country has seen their wages increase 
and their tax burdens reduced because of the last administration's 
policy that will reward the wealthiest of our country. Those folks who 
have the means to pay and help determine public policy for our country 
to invest in the things that are going to make our country stronger, we 
are giving them the breaks when we should be giving the breaks to the 
middle-class families. Remember what Senator Webb said. The health of a 
society is measured not at its top, at its apex, but at its base, 
because it is the base that invests the most into this country.
  I tell you, I was so proud to hear President Obama say and to be 
strong as our Nation's leader and perhaps the leader of the free world 
suggest that we will make it through this crisis. We will make it 
through this crisis. America has seen tough times before, and he said 
that the weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of our 
Nation. And he was so right, that we have the wherewithal to get 
through this.
  To my friends on the other side who are going to prepare their charts 
and graphs and talk about exploding Federal deficits, we need to 
understand that President Obama inherited this. He inherited $1 
trillion that was spent on Medicare part D, but yet families and 
seniors back home still can't get their prescription drugs and 
pharmacies are struggling.
  We spent $1 trillion in Iraq to rebuild roads and bridges over there. 
President Bush thought we needed to make that investment, to make sure 
that every man, woman and child in Iraq had universal health care 
coverage. We gave $1 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.
  Well, it is time that we focus on the middle class, not on the apex, 
but on the base of our Nation, and we do that by investing in the 
people that have made this country stronger and will make this country 
stronger.
  One last point I want to make here before we wrap this up this 
evening. We talk about the budget deficit. This country since its 
beginnings has carried some sort of debt, from the Revolutionary War on 
up through the present time we find ourselves.
  In 1946, in 1946, after this country made it through the Great 
Depression and made it through World War II, the government was 
spending more and borrowing more than the economy could produce; 
spending more and borrowing more than the economy could produce. Right 
now we are at 38 percent of what the economy can produce. After this 
investment in America and we are on the road to recovery, we will be 
about 50 percent. We still have to pay this off, that is acknowledged, 
but we are in a great recession, and we will have the political will 
and the economic wherewithal to pay down this debt and get it closer to 
the margins that President Reagan saw back in the eighties, right 
around 28 to 30 percent. So we need to make those decisions. President 
Obama talked about that resolve. We will make it through this time.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Boccieri, I think about a company in 
my district that makes parts for cosmetics containers. It is a company 
that has been profitable for years. It has had a solid line of 
business. In fact, during this difficult economic time, it has seen its 
orders drop off by a few points here or there, but has been stable, has 
had its revenues remain constant. Yet because the banking system is 
frozen up, because they can't get access to lines of credit and to 
inventory capital, they have shuttered that company. They have shut it 
down. They have temporarily furloughed all of their workers until they 
can hopefully figure out a means to start operations again.
  To them, inaction is not an option. They have done everything right. 
They have kept their business running. They have struggled to contain 
health care costs, to get the costs of production down, to continue to 
reach out and grow their business, and yet they are laying off dozens 
of employees in my district because they can't get access to capital.
  The people they are laying off have done everything that we have 
asked of them as well. They have shown up to work, made a great 
product, invested in their company, invested back in their communities. 
And now they are left without a job. Now they are left without health 
care. Now they are asking how they are going to be able to continue to 
pay for their child's education, where they are going to find the next 
job.
  Well, similar companies all around my district and their town are 
doing the same thing, and they know that inaction isn't an option 
either. They are part of that 65 percent of Americans who want this 
Congress to move forward on a strategy of stimulus. We have to do 
something, because inaction, because ``nothing'' simply isn't going to 
be the answer for this economy.
  For that one company, that story that can be told dozens of times 
over in my district, hundreds of times throughout Connecticut and 
thousands of times throughout this Nation, that strategy about taking 
on the lack of access to capital for businesses, that strategy of 
growing jobs as an alternative to the people who have been laid off, 
that is going to be the answer.
  I am proud to be part of this Congress. I am proud to be ready to 
answer President Obama's charge that he left us the other night. And I 
am proud to be part of the 30-Something Group that over the course of 
the next weeks and months is going to challenge the country and 
challenge this Congress to come together and provide solutions for 
those very people.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the gentleman. I will take the opportunity to 
wrap up.
  We have, over the last two election cycles, heard the message from 
the American people. I think the first time around it was a referendum 
on the policies of the past, that they wanted to move in a new 
direction and they weren't happy with the way things had gone. But the 
second election, the one that we just came through several months ago, 
was about turning the country around and moving in a new direction, and 
that is what we have done. We can have disagreements. I am sure the 
gentleman from Texas is going to express some of that disagreement 
following us, which is great. That is what democracy is all about.
  But I do want the American people to consider, Madam Speaker, that 
they have got what they voted for over the past two election cycles. 
They got a change in direction. They got new policies in this Congress, 
new policies at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. And we are all 
hoping for success. I am sure my friend from Texas is hoping for 
success as well. We need to turn the country around.
  But I do want the American people to know that this Congress and the 
new administration are dedicated to moving this country forward, to 
implementing the changes that the American people voted for and asked 
us to engage on in their behalf.
  So I would thank the gentleman from Connecticut and thank the 
gentleman from Ohio and welcome him to the 30-somethings. And I would 
say that any American who wants to learn more about Mr. Boccieri and 
the 30-Something Group can go to the House Web site, which is 
speaker.gov/30something with the number 30, and learn all about our new 
member from Ohio and any other member of the 30-somethings they want.
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. We are hopeful that, eventually that Mr. 
Ryan and Mr. Meek and Ms. Wasserman Schultz, the veterans, will join us 
down here so that not only can the

[[Page 5781]]

American people learn something about them on the Web site, but they 
can see them down here returned to their roots on the House floor as 
part of the 30-Something Working Group.
  I thank the Speaker for giving us this time.

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