[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16704-16711]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           GOP FRESHMEN HOUR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Gardner) is 
recognized for the balance of the hour as the designee of the majority 
leader.
  Mr. GARDNER. Mr. Speaker, tonight I am joined by several of my 
colleagues from the freshman class to talk about some of the greatest 
issues facing our country and what we are going to do in this country 
to get our job creators back on their feet so we can do something to 
address the unacceptably high levels of unemployment.
  For the past 11 months in this Congress, we have been focused on what 
it would take to get government out of the way and let job creators do 
what they do best, and that's put people back to work. How can we 
restore the economic growth of this country? Obviously as part of that, 
you look at so many of the policies that this country has--whether it's 
regulations, whether it's overspending, whether it's our tax policy--
but it all starts right here in the House of Representatives of what we 
are going to do, the policies we are going to pass to get this country 
hiring again.
  Over the past several months, this is the 32nd month in a row, 
actually, where unemployment has exceeded 8 percent. For 32 consecutive 
months, the unemployment rate has been at or above 8 percent. Remember 
back when the stimulus was passed, they said if it was passed, the 
unemployment rate would never exceed 8 percent. But we're in the 32nd 
month in a row of unemployment over 8 percent. Fourteen million people, 
the number of Americans who are unemployed. The number of net jobs the 
economy has shed from February 2009 when the stimulus was signed into 
law, 2.2 million people losing their work. The unemployment rate among 
job-seekers between the age of 16 and 19 is 24.6 percent.
  This country faces a crisis. It's a crisis of jobs, and that's what 
we have risen to the task to accomplish, to find jobs and to make sure 
that we are creating policies to get this country back to work. The 
House of Representatives for the past 11 months has worked hard to pass 
legislation to find ways to get the private sector moving again.
  I would start with a number of bills that we've called the forgotten 
15. The forgotten 15 are a number of bills that this House has passed, 
many with strong bipartisan support, to get job creators going again 
and to get the private sector invigorated and hiring once again. One 
bill is Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act. My bill, H.R. 2021, No. 7 on 
the list, this bill, if signed into law by the President, would create 
54,000 jobs around the country, creating opportunities to develop 
American energy and American energy security. There are actually more 
bills. This is just the beginning, and we've gotten 15.
  The question I hear in town meeting after town meeting is: Where are 
those jobs? Well, I want to show you another chart that shows where 
those jobs are. You see the forgotten 15. We did a little Google search 
and the Google search showed us those jobs are right here in the United 
States Senate. They are waiting to be passed by the United States 
Senate. Where are the jobs? The forgotten 15 are piling up in the 
Senate. The bills that we have passed, bills like the Jobs and Energy 
Permitting Act that would create jobs--54,000 jobs waiting in the 
United States Senate; waiting to be acted on; waiting to be moved; 
waiting to be signed by the President of the United States.
  We have got a great conversation tonight, and I hope participation 
from colleagues around the country will shed light on our efforts.
  Mr. DOLD. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GARDNER. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

[[Page 16705]]


  Mr. DOLD. You've talked about the forgotten 15. I'm just wondering if 
the jobs bills that we passed on the floor just moments ago would add 
16 and 17 onto that list.
  Mrs. ROBY. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GARDNER. Reclaiming my time, I yield to the gentlelady from 
Alabama.
  Mrs. ROBY. It's actually 22. Our work today on the floor put the 
forgotten 15 to a number of 22. I don't know if you're ready for us to 
start this discussion, but I would just like to read a couple of words.
  We have all been carrying around ``Where are the jobs?'' Everybody 
has theirs, I'm sure, in their pocket to remind the people of the 
United States of America of exactly these bills and what we have done 
to reduce regulatory burdens to allow for offshore drilling. The list 
goes on and on. And even today, the Access to Capital and Entrepreneur 
Access to Capital was right here on the floor just minutes ago.
  But I found myself looking at the thesaurus, looking for a good word 
for ``forgotten'' because now we're at 22. Instead of picking a great 
``T'' word, although there is one and I'll get back to that in a 
minute, we can look at words like ``abandoned,'' ``blanked out,'' 
``blotted out,'' ``omitted,'' ``left behind,'' ``drew a blank,'' but 
the best one is ``slipped one's mind.''
  I think as Americans we have to ask ourselves what's on the minds of 
those in the Democrat majority in the Senate, because if they were to 
get out and travel around their district and look into the eyes of the 
people who are without jobs, who can't put food on the table, who are 
struggling to make ends meet, I think it might slip them right back 
into reality.
  The President is saying over and over and over again, We can't wait. 
Yet now we've got the tardy 22. These bills need to be voted on by the 
Senate. It has been over 900 days since they have even passed a budget. 
This is unconscionable. This is the United States of America, the 
greatest Nation in the world; and yet we have a Senate that is 
unwilling to do the job that the people of America sent them here to 
do.
  So as we continue through this discussion here tonight, we need to 
focus on the tardy 22, the bills that have yet to be voted on by the 
Senate.
  I thank my friend from Colorado for having this hour tonight.
  Mr. GARDNER. I thank both the lady from Alabama and the gentleman 
from Illinois who rightfully pointed out that with the addition of the 
bills that passed the House just today, we have added to the forgotten 
15 bills that are creating jobs, that have passed the House, many with 
strong bipartisan support, that number now reaching 22, the bills that 
would create thousands and thousands of jobs around the country, 
recognized by people on both sides of the aisle as bills that would do 
what it takes to create jobs in this country.
  I yield to the gentleman from New York.
  Mr. REED. I thank the gentleman for yielding and for taking the 
leadership role and putting this hour together, and joining my fellow 
freshman Members on the floor of the House to talk about the number one 
issue of the day, and that is our economy. That is jobs.

                              {time}  1920

  I come down here tonight to join my colleagues and to tell the 
American people that we here in the House of Representatives are going 
to be open and honest and will push forward an agenda that relies on 
the private sector being that primary engine that creates the economic 
environment so that people--hardworking Americans, hardworking 
taxpayers--have the opportunity to take care of their children for 
generations to come by having a good, solid job.
  I'm looking at the vote tally from tonight's two votes that we took 
just moments ago that added to the forgotten 15, the last two of the 
tardy 22. And look at the numbers on passage of each bill. It was 407-
17, and it was 413-11. That is almost an unbelievable percentage of 
bipartisan support in the House of Representatives for two bills that 
are going to create a stronger private sector America so that we can 
put people back to work.
  And yet we continue to engage in partisan politics in the Senate, and 
we don't even allow these bills to have a vote on the floor of the 
Senate, at least to be debated in an open and honest debate, an 
argument about their merits to be heard by all Americans just like we 
do here in the House of Representatives on the floor of the House.
  It's interesting. I listen to the President as he goes around and 
he's promoting his Jobs Act bill, and I would say that I clearly have 
an impression that the President is concerned about his job. But is he 
really concerned about your job? Because he's spending an inordinate 
amount of time going around this country rather than coming here to 
Washington and working with us in the House and working with the 
Members in his own party in the Senate to say, Take up with these bills 
and have an honest debate. Send them over. If they strengthen the 
private sector of America--like essentially all of our colleagues here 
in the House agreed tonight would do by passing and supporting these 
bills with the numbers that we see--have that debate in the Senate and 
move forward.
  We're going to stand, and we're going to continue to work for the 
hardworking taxpayers here in the House of Representatives. I know my 
colleagues share in that sentiment because that's what we came to 
Washington to do. We came to Washington as freshmen Members of Congress 
not to engage in politics, not to engage in partisan debates, but to 
talk about fundamental policy issues that are going to move us forward 
as a Nation, so that we can have the great experience that we've all 
enjoyed and the opportunities that we've all enjoyed, so that all of 
our fellow Americans can give that opportunity not only to themselves 
but to their kids, to their brothers, their sisters, so everybody in 
this Nation can enjoy that opportunity.
  Mr. GARDNER. I thank the gentleman from New York.
  You bring up some great points in terms of what the American people 
are facing when they look at Congress and see the number of bills that 
we have passed with bipartisan support to create jobs. They see them 
passing the House with bipartisan support and going over to the Senate 
and are asking, Where are the jobs? Right over in the U.S. Senate.
  I will share with you some of the uncertainty that our constituents 
are facing. Consumer confidence has plunged. A measure of Americans' 
optimism about the economy and their personal financial situations 
recently dropped to its lowest level in 2\1/2\ years in October. CBS 
News had a poll this past month. Americans say they feel worse about 
the economy than they have since the depths of the Great Depression. 
The Great Recession that we are in now, the fact that Americans feel 
worse about this time than they did about the Great Depression is 
simply unacceptable. And we have addressed legislation. We have passed 
legislation to deal with the uncertainty and to put people back to 
work.
  I now yield to the gentlelady from Washington, one of the ladies who 
has worked very hard in this House to get people back to work.
  Ms. HERRERA BEUTLER. Thank you so much.
  We're all here tonight because we really believe that America is the 
greatest country on the face of the Earth, and it is so because of her 
people.
  Folks at home in my neck of the woods in southwest Washington are out 
of work. I can go through the statistics. It's alarming. It's very 
alarming. I have family and close friends who have been out of work now 
going on several years. Double-digit unemployment, and we've been at 
this rate for 3, going on 4 years now.
  I had a jobs fair a couple of weeks ago. We invited employers who are 
hiring real jobs, good jobs to come. We got them in a room with job 
seekers and put out kind of an all-hands-on-deck call: Anybody who's 
looking for a job, we have real job openings available. Come to this 
jobs fair. We had over 1,700 people show up. And as I walked through 
the line that snaked through

[[Page 16706]]

the parking lot to say hello and to greet these folks, I was talking to 
men and women, young and old, very experienced or fresh out of high 
school or college who were looking to find work, experienced 
individuals who had that look on their face, some of them, of 
desperation. And they're asking, What is Congress going to do? What is 
Congress going to do to help me find work to keep my mortgage, to pay 
for my kids' education, and to put food on the table? What are you 
going to do?
  Well, we're here tonight to talk about some of the things we've 
already done. And right now what we're doing is we want to put pressure 
on the other side of the rotunda to pass these bills and get some jobs 
flowing for the folks who stood in that parking lot.
  That event was a success. We've had over 30 people find work, and 
we've had hundreds more who are in interviews. Great. I did that 
because I didn't feel you could wait on an act of Congress. And 
watching those individuals who are on the other side of the rotunda who 
haven't passed any of these jobs bills, it would seem like a good idea. 
But here tonight we are applying appropriate pressure to that group, 
saying, Pass these bills.
  Let me talk to you about one of these bills that will make a huge 
difference for people across this Nation. It's called the EPA 
Regulatory Relief Act. It's a simple bill. It's a very bipartisan bill. 
And let me tell you about this bill. And people throw around that word 
``bipartisan.'' What does that mean? It means strong support from 
Republicans and Democrats.
  I'm going to read for you, right here is H.R. 2250. That's the bill 
that we passed off this House floor. These are all of the folks, my 
friends from the other side of the aisle. Here are the Democrats in the 
House who have sponsored this bill. We have folks in leadership and we 
have newer Members. They have joined with the Republican House here and 
passed a bill, the EPA Regulatory Relief Act, that the Senate must take 
up if we are going to protect these jobs. These regulations, in fact, 
hit all sorts of industries.
  There's a rule that the Obama administration's EPA has put forward 
that says business, industry, and hospitals, anyone that has a type of 
boiler, you have to put millions, in some cases millions of dollars 
into this boiler to bring it up to some standard. That standard hasn't 
been clearly defined. And, actually, the EPA itself has asked and said, 
Can we take a little bit more time to figure out what we are requiring 
of folks before we require major capital investments, capital 
investments that could otherwise be used to hire someone or to increase 
productivity in a business to create more jobs?
  But what's happening is these businesses are now going to be required 
to put this money into an expenditure to bring this boiler up to some 
code that we can't prove has any environmental benefit, which is why 
you see so many folks who are advocates for the environment who have 
cosponsored this bill in the House. We need the Senate to pass this 
bill; otherwise, we could lose potentially over 20,000 jobs nationwide. 
That's in the primary pulp and paper industry alone. I'm not talking 
about hospitals. I'm not talking about other industries. In southwest 
Washington, we value the primary pulp and paper industry, which is 18 
percent of that workforce.
  At a time when we need to be creating jobs, we certainly should be 
getting rid of those regulations that cost us jobs. The way we do that 
is we get the Senate to join with us and pass this bill, get it to the 
President's desk, get that man to sign that bill and move forward for 
the people in our communities.
  The EPA, the Obama administration's EPA alone has estimated that that 
regulation, if untouched, will cost employers over 5, almost 6 billion, 
and that's the low-end number. The industries have said it would be as 
high as 14 billion. Any way you look at it, that's a high price tag 
that's going to cost jobs. Over 230,000 total jobs are at risk if you 
count the related industries, not just pulp and paper. So we're talking 
about major impacts to our national economy, and all we have to do--all 
we have to do to protect those jobs is we need to pass this bill off 
the Senate floor, get it to the President and get him to sign it into 
law. We really don't have time to wait.
  I have talked to the men and women, the moms and dads, the young 
people who are hoping to find work. And when we let some of our 
industry just go out, basically die, death by 1,000 cuts, death by 
1,000 regulations, shame on this institution. Congress does need to 
act, and I implore my colleagues on the other side of the rotunda to 
join with us in this bipartisan fashion. Send this bill to the 
President, and have the President sign it.

                              {time}  1930

  Mrs. ROBY. Will the gentlelady yield?
  Ms. HERRERA BEUTLER. I yield to my colleague from Alabama.
  Mrs. ROBY. I just want to say to all of our colleagues on the floor 
tonight, it's so important to the gentlelady from Washington not to 
wait, that she's spending her birthday night on the floor of the U.S. 
House of Representatives fighting for the American people. So happy 
birthday to our friend and colleague.
  Ms. HERRERA BEUTLER. Thank you.
  With that, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. GARDNER. And thank you for the points that you raised.
  Talking about the EPA and the regulations they've issued, I had the 
opportunity at a committee hearing several months ago, the Energy and 
Commerce Committee, to discuss with the assistant administrator of the 
EPA--one of the assistant administrators, Mathy Stanislaus--where we 
were asking a very simple question: Does the Environmental Protection 
Agency actually take into account jobs, the impact on jobs when they do 
an economic analysis? And the answer we got was, no, he didn't take 
into account jobs when they did the economic analysis. And I find it 
hard to believe that anybody could actually have an adequate analysis 
of a rule or regulation's impact on the economy if they're not even 
taking a look at jobs and what it means for our economy.
  Ms. HERRERA BEUTLER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GARDNER. I yield to the gentlelady from Washington.
  Ms. HERRERA BEUTLER. With that point, we're not saying let's erase or 
eviscerate environment protections, absolutely not. We want to protect 
our quality of life and pass it on to the next generation. We're simply 
asking, as with our Democratic colleagues, for some common sense to be 
used. Take into account, when you're going through the matrix of these 
environmental regulations, what the impact is on the economy. It's a 
very reasonable, very commonsense way to approach it.
  Mr. GARDNER. I thank the lady from Washington and yield to the 
gentleman from Illinois.
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. I thank the gentleman from Colorado.
  You know what's amazing about those forgotten 15? You know how much 
they cost? Nothing. I mean, isn't that great? When you think about it, 
we're talking about something out of Washington, D.C. that doesn't cost 
anything and is actually going to do something. I mean, how often does 
that happen? Well, if you look, a couple of years prior--or actually I 
guess a year ago 4 years prior--everything that came out of here cost a 
lot of money.
  The President's own stimulus bill, as was mentioned earlier, when 
they said unemployment will never go above 8 percent if we pass this, 
in fact it has never gone below 8 percent since it was passed; and that 
cost almost $1 trillion added onto our debt. And I actually remember 
once I was doing an interview and there was a fellow Congresswoman from 
the other side, there was a Democrat that said, well, you know, the 
problem with the first stimulus is it wasn't large enough. That's why 
it didn't work, it wasn't large enough. Okay. I disagreed, but for a 
moment of time let's say that's accurate; let's say it wasn't large 
enough. So why would you do a stimulus that's half as large as the 
original one?
  Truthfully, to be honest with you guys, I think that the President 
has no

[[Page 16707]]

intention of his jobs plan, his Stimulus II passing the House of 
Representatives. In fact, I think if we actually voted on it and passed 
it tomorrow, there would be some panic in the administration because 
they know that it's not going to be a job-creation plan; they know it's 
just a political thing to talk about.
  This is a real job-creation plan right here, the bills that we have 
over in the Senate. And it's time that today we just--I mean, look, 
Senator Reid, take up the bills, vote them down if you want to vote 
them down, but give the American people a voice. They can't have a 
voice when they sit on your desk. You don't have a voice when they sit 
on your desk. We don't need another $450 billion added onto our debt. 
What we need is to pass these bills and this plan.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. GARDNER. I thank the gentleman from Illinois.
  I know in Colorado that my neighbor the gentleman from Kansas has 
done tremendous work on getting this country back economically and what 
he's doing to create jobs.
  I yield to the gentleman from Kansas.
  Mr. YODER. I appreciate the gentleman from Colorado for yielding your 
time.
  I was listening to the comments from the gentleman from Illinois 
discussing the unemployment rate being over 8 percent now for some 
time. In fact, it's been over 8 percent for 32 months, which is the 
longest period of unemployment this high since the Great Depression. I 
mean, the things we're doing in Washington, D.C. frankly haven't been 
working, and so it's time to start pushing the types of bills that the 
House has been pushing this year to try to get this economy back on 
track.
  I'm happy to join my colleagues tonight. I'm also happy to be a 
strong supporter of the forgotten 15 and the new seven bills and dozens 
of bills that are passing the House throughout this session that will 
help the economy recover and help small businesses create jobs.
  Now, Americans are frustrated with what they see going on in 
Congress, with what they see going on in Washington, D.C., and there's 
a reason, because they see the policies that have failed in this town 
over the past few years and they don't believe that Washington can 
function and they can do things to help the economy recover.
  That's because we've been doing all the wrong things. Whether it was 
the bailout, stimulus bills, Cash for Clunkers, the health care 
takeover, cap-and-trade, Card Check, you couldn't think of a more anti-
business set of legislation that this Congress passed over the last few 
years than those bills. And what they did is they've held down the 
recovery and they've stopped small business owners, they've stopped 
entrepreneurs from growing and creating jobs.
  Frankly, we know that jobs are not going to be created in Washington, 
D.C. They're going to be created back home in places like Illinois and 
in Colorado and in Kansas and in Alabama and, yes, even Wisconsin--all 
across the country--by innovators and job creators and entrepreneurs, 
the people that built this country and that create the jobs.
  They're not going to come from big Washington programs, and that's 
what has caused the problems in this country. These big Washington 
bailouts run up national debt. All of it has not worked. And so it's 
time we changed course. It's time we start pushing legislation that 
will promote small business, that will promote the free enterprise 
system. And frankly, these things are common sense. The American people 
want Congress to pass commonsense legislation.
  The point about these commonsense bills that the House is pushing, 
these pro-business, pro-job-creating bills that the House has been 
pushing and sending over to the Senate, is that they focus on the very 
things that built this country in the first place. This Nation was not 
built because we had the highest tax rates in the world, because we had 
more regulations than any country in the world, because we had national 
debt in the trillions. That's not what built this country. It was the 
hard work and determination, the sweat equity of the American people--
who had no guarantees--who built this country brick by brick.
  The commonsense things that Congress doesn't do, that they've been 
doing the wrong way for years--look, tax increases. Tax increases don't 
create jobs. Borrowing and spending doesn't create wealth, doesn't 
create jobs. Regulations don't create jobs. And so every day in 
Washington we're putting more barriers in the way of these small 
business owners that we want to have create jobs, and it's making 
things worse.
  In fact, just looking at the regulations that are coming out every 
week out of Washington, it's unbelievable. This is just a stack of the 
regulations that have come out just this week in Washington, D.C. 
Monday, a new set of regulations. Tuesday, a new set of regulations. 
Wednesday, a new set of regulations. That one was pretty thick there. 
Thursday, another set of regulations. Just this week, these 
regulations, they just don't stop. It just keeps coming and coming and 
hitting our small business owners and stopping the economy from 
recovering.
  Let me just give you an example of what these regulations have. On 
Wednesday alone, 188 pages of new regulations dealing with the health 
care takeover. Is that what the economy needs? Is that what you hear 
from your small business owners at home? Is that what Americans are 
crying out for, 188 new pages of regulations dealing with health care? 
It's got to stop.
  And yes to the President: we can wait on having new regulations, we 
can wait on the President's big tax increases, we can wait on this 
stuff. We don't need 188 new pages of ObamaCare regulations. We don't 
need this new stack of regulations this week. It's not helping the 
economy recover. It's making it more difficult.
  That's why I'm proud to stand with my colleagues today on the House 
floor and fight for the American people and fight for the prosperity of 
this country that we all believe in. We know we can restore it, but 
we've got to stop doing the stuff in Washington that's making it hard 
to recover.
  Mr. GARDNER. I have a question for the gentleman, if he would 
entertain it. You're talking about, what you're holding in your hand, 
that is this week, that's just 1 week, 1 day of regulations?
  Mr. YODER. These are the regulations that have come out since Monday. 
You have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, the regulations. These 
didn't create jobs. These made it harder on the economy. Every day--in 
fact, I think there's been over 65,000 new pages of regulations coming 
out of Washington, D.C. Frankly, to the gentleman from Colorado, the 
people at home, they hear us talking about the regulations, but they 
may not always see and understand what Washington is actually doing. 
This is what we're doing to the job creators; this is what we're doing 
to the entrepreneurs of this country. We are strangling them. These 
regulations are making what was once the most prosperous Nation in the 
world, that was a beacon of hope around the world that we all still 
believe in, it's trying to strangle that and we've got to stop it.
  Mr. GARDNER. I thank the gentleman from Kansas.
  One of the most common things I hear at town meetings is the issue of 
uncertainty in our economy, and the issue that regulations are forcing 
businesses to make decisions not to hire new people, but to actually 
either prevent them from growing or to actually reduce in size.
  With that, I would yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
  Mr. DOLD. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I still am just thinking about the regulations from this week, and 
the week is not over. We've still got another day of regulations that 
are going to be coming out.
  And we hear time and again from our colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle that it's been 10 months and still no jobs bill. We hear it 
time and again with the 1-minute speeches when we

[[Page 16708]]

open up session; the other side says ``still no jobs bill.''

                              {time}  1940

  Well, I beg to differ. We've got jobs bills. We talk about the 
forgotten 15. We've got several more. We passed some tonight.
  Part of our plan is to empower the private sector. Part of our plan 
is to make sure that we're eliminating some of the uncertainty that's 
out there. And let me just tell you, the week of regulations, just 1 
week of regulations that are out here that literally shakes the desk 
when you drop it is certainly not creating more certainty.
  Now, the one thing that I am pleased to say is that I believe that we 
were sent here to be able to work with those on the other side of the 
aisle to move our country forward. I am pleased to say that we passed 
bills today talking about access to capital for job creators, like many 
of us here coming from the private sector--broad bipartisan support.
  The President of the United States came and spoke before the Chamber 
here in a joint session talking about a jobs plan. As opposed to saying 
no, I don't want it, what I tried to talk to others about, and I know 
many agree, is what are the areas that we agree on?
  Let's talk about free trade or the trade agreements. We agree. We 
passed those. That's about 250,000 American jobs, increasing our bottom 
line in terms of our GDP by $10 billion this year alone with South 
Korea as the only one. We add Colombia and Panama and that number 
obviously rises.
  The President talks about the burdensome regulations. We agree. We 
need to make sure we have regulations. As the gentlelady from 
Washington noted, we want them to be smart regulations, not just more 
of them. I mean, my goodness. How much does it cost us to even print 
these?
  The long and the short of it is that we need to create an 
environment, we need to create an environment for the private sector 
out there with broad bipartisan support. And I believe that if we ask 
those on the other side of the aisle what's the biggest issue facing 
our country today, it's jobs and the economy. We just have a different 
view of who should be creating those jobs.
  I believe it should be the private sector. I believe the private 
sector, entrepreneurship. The United States of America has been and 
continues to be the greatest force for hope the world has ever known. 
We have 29 million small businesses in our Nation. If we can create an 
environment where half of them can create a single job, think about 
where we'd be then.
  Let's just take a look at this because these are some bold points, 
and I think if I asked the gentleman from Illinois to talk to me about 
empowering small businesses and reducing government barriers to job 
creation, I guarantee you he can give me a couple of things that we're 
doing right now here in this Congress.
  If I talked to the gentleman from Colorado about fixing the Tax Code 
to help job creators, I know that he'd come up with some things because 
we've already done it. We passed a budget.
  We're at 918 days in the United States Senate. 918 days, and still no 
budget. Yet, the law requires the Congress to come up with a budget 
every April 15. And yet that responsibility--by the way, it's against 
the law--has been shirked by the United States Senate.
  We're going to hear more about this ``Do-Nothing Congress.'' And I 
want to make sure that the American public knows that we are here 
passing what we believe is commonsense legislation, in a bipartisan 
fashion, to move the country forward.
  We realize that unless things pass the United States Senate and go to 
the President's desk for signature, we're not going to be able to move 
the needle.
  The American public is frustrated. We're frustrated too, because I 
believe that the American Dream is at stake. The American Compact that 
we all came to Congress to deal with, that we leave the country better 
for the next generation than we received from our parents and 
grandparents, I believe, is in jeopardy today. That, to me, is 
completely unacceptable.
  Mrs. ROBY. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. DOLD. I yield to the gentlewoman from Alabama.
  Mrs. ROBY. I'd just like to say, I had asked for the totals; I didn't 
have them written down. But you take the kind of bipartisan support 
that you're talking about that we received on the two bills that we 
passed just today, the access to capital and the access for 
entrepreneurs, you take that kind of bipartisan support--the American 
people are frustrated because the President is calling this the 
Republican Congress. This is a bicameral Congress, and whereas we hold 
the majority in this House, we don't in the Senate.
  But you saw the actions that took place on the floor tonight. The 
first one passed 407-17. The second bill passed 413-11. There is a way 
to find common ground without compromising principle, and that is what 
we are doing because the American people are hurting, and we've got to 
create that environment, and we have by passing these bills.
  We are calling on those in the Senate to see our bipartisanship in 
this House to get Americans back to work.
  Mr. DOLD. I thank the gentlewoman for commenting on that. There's no 
doubt. Look, bipartisanship can be done. The American public is 
frustrated because they don't think that we're working, and, in some 
instances, we know that Washington can be broken.
  We want to work together because we know we've got to move the ball 
down the field. We know we've got to get people back to work. We've got 
a 9.1 percent unemployment. What is it in Wisconsin?
  Mr. DUFFY. About 9 percent.
  Mr. DOLD. About 9 percent? In Illinois it's at 10 percent. In certain 
areas of the 10th District in Illinois we've got areas of 20 to 22 
percent. I can tell you that jobs right now, absolutely number one 
priority, and that's why I'm willing to work with anybody here in 
Washington that's willing to listen, that's willing to reach across the 
aisle to come up with solutions. And I want to let you know, people are 
saying that we don't have a plan--we've got a plan: Jobs.gop.gov. I 
welcome everybody to go get it.
  Mr. GARDNER. I want to thank the gentleman from Illinois for his 
comments because when he started talking tonight he talked about his 
great hope and optimism for this country, the fact that we really do 
live in the greatest Nation on the face of this earth.
  But we face tremendous challenges. The unemployment that you spoke 
about for your State, the unemployment in Wisconsin, the unemployment 
levels in Colorado and across this country are significant. Fourteen 
million people who are out of work, and if you start looking at the 
people who are underemployed or who've simply given up looking for 
work, that number increases even more.
  I want to share with you something that I think is very difficult for 
all of us to realize is happening, and that's the fact that there's 
more fear about our future than at many other times in our history. 
According to a recent newspaper account, a resounding 69 percent of 
respondents said the country is in decline.
  But yet we know this country is better. We know this country is 
great. We know that the bills that we have passed, the leadership that 
we have provided will restore the greatness of this country and get 
this country working again.
  I have worked with my colleague from Colorado for many years in the 
State legislature. He is a small businessman, somebody who knows how to 
sign a check to employees, to work under regulations that he has had to 
deal with, and in the State legislature he stood up for jobs, and I 
know he's doing the same thing here.
  I would yield to my colleague from western Colorado, and thank the 
gentleman for being here tonight.
  Mr. TIPTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  We talk about unemployment in this country--over 8 percent, 9.1 
percent nationally.

[[Page 16709]]

  Let me tell you the story in my district in Colorado, the two largest 
communities: 10.7 percent unemployment in Pueblo, Colorado; 10.5 
percent in Grand Junction, Colorado. I have 29 counties in Colorado. We 
have one county that has higher than 17 percent unemployment.
  There's a lot of discussion on this floor in Washington, DC, about 
jobs and the economy, and it's well placed. We talked about businesses. 
But what we often forget to remember is that these businesses are made 
up of moms and dads, grandparents, people with hopes, with dreams for a 
better future. These are the employers, the people who make America 
work, working together in business.
  Let me tell you a story about a man named Jim Bartmus in Pueblo, 
Colorado. Just about a month ago, Mr. Bartmus, who was a contractor, 
was faced with a real dilemma. Just a few years ago he qualified under 
the President's definition as wealthy. A small contractor. That wealth 
he reinvested back into his business to try and grow it, to try and 
create more jobs in this country.
  Mr. Bartmus made that investment. He paid down his line of credit to 
zero. When he went to the bank to re-up that line of credit to be able 
to keep that business going, to keep his 24 core employees at work, he 
discovered that, because of regulations, because of Dodd-Frank, that he 
couldn't get that line of credit re-upped once again. As a result, Mr. 
Bartmus lined up his equipment and auctioned it off.
  When you talk to a grizzled contractor, and you hear his voice crack 
as he has to describe how he laid off 24 people that we call 
employees--and he called family, you know this hits America at home.
  As I travel throughout my district, as I know my colleagues travel 
throughout the rest of the country, we hear the same lament from small 
business, from the number 1 job creators in this country. They're 
overregulated. They're worried about that pile of regulations that we 
see dropped upon the desk on a weekly basis. Being able to have access 
to capital. What is that tax rate going to actually be?

                              {time}  1950

  What is the President's health care plan actually going to cost? 
Those are the questions that they raise and why they are afraid to 
invest. If we will unleash American entrepreneurialism once again, if 
we will create that certainty for Americans to do what we do better 
than any people on the face of the Earth--that's to create, to 
innovate, to build--we can get this American economy moving.
  My colleague from Colorado and I have discussed oftentimes there's 
something very unique about being an American. The very blood that 
courses through our veins is infused with something that people from 
around the world simply can't understand. We don't look for government 
to be the answer; we don't look for a government program. We want the 
freedom and the ability to be able to build our own future.
  Government should not be a stumbling block to that success, but a 
stepping stone. And in this case, it means the government should get 
out of American businesses' way, the American employees' way, and let 
us do what we do best: get America back to work.
  Mr. GARDNER. I thank the gentleman from Colorado.
  I was speaking to a pharmacist the other day. You mentioned the issue 
of regulations, what it's doing to business, and they actually wanted 
to create a little different business model for their pharmacy by 
placing a pharmacist instead of behind the counter within the pharmacy, 
they wanted to move them up in front of the counter so as customers 
came in, they could go and talk to the pharmacist about what they 
needed help with. They actually had to change a regulation to allow 
that pharmacist to sit in front of the counter instead of behind the 
counter.
  I now yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin who has been working hard 
to create jobs as well.
  Mr. DUFFY. I appreciate the gentleman from Colorado yielding, and I 
commend my colleagues for your hard work and the focus that you have 
all had on jobs and job creation and legislation that's actually going 
to help move our economy forward.
  I think we're in a unique time in American history. If you look at 
where we're at and the level of competition that we are under from 
countries like China, India, Mexico, Vietnam, Brazil, this is a whole 
new environment that we haven't seen before. It's not 1950, it's not 
1980, it's not even the 1990s. This is a different form of competition.
  If we're going to be successful in this new environment, we have to 
do it right because if we get it wrong, you see massive unemployment.
  And as we came into this recession, I think the American people said 
to the President, We are willing to go along with you, Mr. President, 
if you tell us that we could spend a trillion dollars and from that you 
can take the pain away, you can create jobs with that kind of spending. 
If you tell us that we can pass a health care bill and that's going to 
create jobs, we can pass more regulation and that's going to create 
jobs, okay, Mr. President. We'll go along with you because the pain is 
too great.
  When one of my family members is out of work and I see the pain and 
suffering in their family, it's worth it, Mr. President. I will go with 
you.
  Now, this is a path that we haven't traditionally gone down because 
we're an economy, we're a society of free markets and free enterprise 
where we look to the individual who invests, works hard, innovates, and 
creates wealth, creates opportunity, creates jobs in their community.
  But we're willing to go for a while and say, Let's try it out, Mr. 
President.
  A couple years down the road, we now look back and say where are we. 
Are we better off today than we were 2\1/2\, 3 years ago? And I think 
if you ask the American people, they will give you a resounding, No, 
we're not.
  So what we're doing here today is saying let's go back to our great 
history. Let's go back to our roots of free markets. Let's try to 
streamline the regulatory process that this government has given the 
private sector. Let's make sure we free the American people, we free 
the entrepreneurial spirit. And if we do that and we engage in this new 
competitive environment against China, India, Mexico, I don't care who 
it is, if you set America free, we will compete, we will win, we will 
thrive, we will grow, and we will prosper.
  That's why we in this House have passed bills with bipartisan support 
that advocate for free markets. And listen, some people come at us and 
say, You don't want regulation. That's not true. We want smart 
regulation. They'll say, listen, the Tax Code needs to be reformed. And 
we'll say, yes, absolutely it needs to be reformed. We want to make 
sure that there aren't loopholes that don't make big corporations and 
big industry and the wealthy not pay their fair share.
  We were the first ones in Washington to say let's root out the 
loopholes. That was in our budget that we said let's root it out. And 
it was only after we did it did we see the President come out and say 
he wanted to follow. And I will tell him that I'm a willing partner to 
join him in tax reform.
  I think as we look at what's happened here, as one of the Members 
here said, we sent over 22 bills to the Senate. And with that, the 
Senate hasn't taken up any of them. And as the gentleman from Illinois 
noted, at least the Senate should take them up and give them a vote. 
And if they want to vote them down, that's okay. But at least take them 
up and give them a vote.
  They took the President's bill up, gave it a vote and on a bipartisan 
effort it failed.
  So my point to my colleagues and to the American people is that if we 
are going to move our economy forward, we have to tap in to the 
principles and the ideals that made this country great. That is what 
this freshman class is talking about tonight. That's what we've been 
talking about for the last 10 months.
  I look forward to the work with my colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle. As you might notice, I'm on the left side

[[Page 16710]]

here. I'm on the Democrat side of the aisle. I'm willing to work with 
my friends on both sides. But let's get it done. Let's not do it for 
parties. Let's do it for the American people, putting them back to 
work.
  With that, I thank my colleague from Colorado for yielding.
  Mr. GARDNER. I thank you.
  I'd be curious to hear from my colleagues tonight. Over the 55 town 
meetings that I've held, I've never heard somebody come up to me and 
say, hey, when is the government going to start creating all of these 
jobs to replace 15 million unemployed, to give them jobs, 15 million 
unemployed. I don't know if you're hearing the same thing.
  Mrs. ROBY. I get asked the question, or I did early on, What has been 
a shocking thing in your experience in Washington? And I unequivocally 
can say the most shocking part of this experience of representing 
Alabama's Second District is really beginning to understand how huge 
this government is, how the Federal Government right now today trickles 
down into every crevice of our lives.
  And to go with the gentleman from Wisconsin's remarks, we are trying 
to get government out of the way and allow the private sector to 
thrive. And we don't have people coming up to us at our town halls 
saying, when are you going to pass more regulations?
  What is the gentlement from Illinois hearing?
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. What's amazing to me is we've 
conditioned--I mean Republicans and Democrats, not ``we.'' We've only 
been here less than a year. But the American people have been so 
conditioned to believe that if there is any difficulty, the answer is a 
giant government expenditure package, a giant bill with a lot of money 
spent. We've been conditioned to believe that.
  So if the economy is bad, it obviously is because the government is 
not spending enough. Well, that's not true.
  The reality is we built this country--and this is what I hear from 
people--we built this country based on people just having an idea and 
going out and getting it done. That's what we're talking about, that 
idea.
  Mr. GARDNER. The statistics speak for themselves. Two million people, 
the number of net jobs the economy shed from February of 2009 when the 
stimulus was passed.
  Are you hearing the same thing in the great State of Washington?
  Ms. HERRERA BEUTLER. Absolutely.
  And here's an important point. We as Republicans understand that the 
Federal Government has responsibilities and duties: security, our 
Nation's infrastructure. There are certain things we're responsible 
for. We're not against those things. We just think they need to be done 
in a smart and efficient fashion.
  When you look at the last time the stimulus, giant amounts of money 
were spent before this most recent round of stimulus spending under the 
Obama economy, the last time we got things out of it like the Hoover 
Dam. We got something for it.
  Out of the stimulus spending, which was sold primarily as a jobs bill 
because it was going to create transportation infrastructure, less than 
7 percent of that $800 billion stimulus bill actually went to 
transportation and infrastructure.
  So it's not that Republicans don't support making sure those things 
take place. We're here to require some accountability. We're not going 
to throw money at it and hope that that works. We recognize there's 
something broken here in Washington. We have now passed well over 15 
bills to get jobs growing to fix that thing that's broken. And we just 
need some help from folks on the other side of the rotunda.
  Mrs. ROBY. I would just say this, too: I think the American people 
ought to be begging the question to the Senate as it relates to the 
tardy 22 bills that they have sitting over there on their side that we 
know will create jobs. They need to ask them specifically, their 
Senators, why are you opposed to this? What is your sound objective? 
What is your reasoning? We want to create jobs. We're out of work.

                              {time}  2000

  Earlier, I said another word for ``forgotten'' because the forgotten 
15 has slipped our minds. It has just slipped our minds. We need to 
remind these Senators over there. All Americans do. They need to pick 
up the phone and ask, What's your opposition to these 22 bills that 
will create jobs and put America back to work so that we can be a 
thriving economy once more?
  Mr. GARDNER. America's job creators, the plan that we have come up 
with to get this economy moving forward again, it's embodied in the 
forgotten 15, and the other bills that we have passed to join the 
forgotten 15 are piling up in the United States Senate, all these bills 
with the simple goal of empowering small businesses and reducing 
government barriers to job creation.
  Fix the Tax Code to help job creators. Nobody opposes these ideas. 
Nobody opposes these ideas. If you go to Americans around this country 
and ask them, should we be encouraging entrepreneurship and growth, 
they're going to say ``yes,'' and that's exactly what these bills do.
  I'm sure that you're hearing the same thing in your meetings.
  Mrs. ROBY. The private sector is sitting on trillions of dollars. We 
know that. The money is there to jump-start our economy, but because of 
all this uncertainty, no one is spending these dollars to reinvest in 
their private businesses.
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. Yes.
  How many times is Washington going to be dishonest with us and just 
say, I know it didn't work in the past, but it's going to work this 
time? The President himself said the shovel-ready jobs--chuckle, 
chuckle--weren't so shovel-ready after all.
  That's fine--because it doesn't work.
  This plan right here, this will work. The American people are our 
jobs recovery plan. The American people doing what they can do best, 
that's the recovery plan. It's not another $500 billion.
  Mrs. ROBY. And getting the government out of the way so that they can 
thrive.
  Ms. HERRERA BEUTLER. Absolutely.
  I think, for those controlling this time, it's important to 
recognize, if you want more details about these jobs, the forgotten 15, 
jobs.gop.gov is a good place to go. If you want pick up the phone and 
call your Senators, there's the Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act, 
there's the EPA regulation bill, and there are several more bills that 
the other side needs to hear from the folks from home on.
  Mr. GARDNER. I want to thank everybody for participating in tonight's 
discussion about our plan for jobs, about what we're going to do to get 
this country back to work. For 32 months, this country has faced 
unemployment of over 8 percent.
  I want to share a story that happened just a couple of weeks ago when 
I had the opportunity to sit down with some employers around the State 
of Colorado. We were in a restaurant, and had the opportunity to 
discuss what regulations are doing to our economy--overregulations, as 
mentioned here tonight. We all believe in smart regulations, in those 
regulations that make sense but that aren't overly burdensome to job 
creators. As we had this conversation, we talked about what burden we 
were placing on future generations, the high unemployment rate, with 
nearly 14 million people who are out of work, and what we were going to 
do to help America's working families make ends meet once again.
  We had a waitress who was coming in and helping everybody, taking 
orders and working very hard that morning. After we were done, we 
walked away, walked out. The conversations were going, and I was the 
last one to leave this meeting. Just then, the waitress who was working 
in that room came up to me and grabbed me by the shoulder.
  She said, Hey, I liked what you guys were talking about, because this 
is my second job. This isn't my only job. I'm trying to start a 
business, and I'm trying to work here while that business gets off the 
ground. We're trying to make ends meet so that I can get that

[[Page 16711]]

business going, and I'm trying to work here.
  As to what you talked about, the regulations that are hurting 
businesses, the taxes that are giving an uncompetitive advantage to 
people right here, that's hurting her ability to get her job going, and 
there she is, working a second job, and there are people out there with 
third jobs and trying to make ends meet.
  I want to thank everybody for participating tonight, and I encourage 
people who may be interested in the Republican jobs plan to visit 
jobs.gop.gov.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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