[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11825-11830]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         AMERICA'S DEBT CEILING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for 
the remainder of the hour as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to be recognized 
to address you here on the floor of the House of Representatives, and I 
always appreciate the honor and the privilege.
  I, like every Member in this Congress, and most Americans, have some 
strong opinions about the workings and the necessity for this Congress 
to step up and lead, as we have led, on the issue of the debt ceiling.
  And I will start with this: Some weeks ago, the Secretary of the 
Treasury, Tim Geithner, laid out a date; and he said August 2 is a hard 
break deadline beyond which we can't extend our borrowing and our 
spending and that the government will not be able to pay its bills, and 
we will have to default on our debt. That, I think, Madam Speaker, is 
an irresponsible statement on the part of the Secretary of the 
Treasury, and we should keep in mind that his first boss is the 
President of the United States.
  So the things that come out of the mouth of the Secretary of the 
Treasury often reflect the best interests of the President and perhaps 
are explicit or implied directive that comes from the President. And I 
happen to have this belief that when someone goes to work for the 
President, their judgment becomes what they think the President would 
do if he happened to be doing their job.

[[Page 11826]]

  I have watched the transition of executive offices over the years, in 
places like the Governor's office in Iowa, where I come from and have 
served in the Iowa Senate before I came here. I watched as the 
transition in the executive branch took place, and I watched as some of 
the people that survived the transition did so by accommodating their 
positions to that of their new chief executive officer, their new 
Governor.
  I watched as the United States of America has transitioned from a 
George W. Bush administration to a Barack Obama administration. And I 
have watched as some of the survivors of that transition accommodated 
their positions to their new President, their new Commander in Chief. 
So I'm a little cynical about the knowledge base and what is declared 
to be the deep convictions of some of the appointees of the President.
  When I hear the Secretary of the Treasury say, This August 2 date is 
the date beyond which we can't go, we can't borrow beyond that, and so 
we'll have to start defaulting on our debt, why does Tim Geithner say 
that? I say he does because that accommodates the President's argument 
that this ``we've got to put up or shut up date'' is a hard date, 
August 2, beyond which is a financial calamity. I don't believe that, 
Madam Speaker. I don't believe we get into a financial calamity if we 
go on the other side of August 2.
  It may be a fairly accurate calculated date, beyond which we won't 
have the borrowing capacity to continue to pay our bills on time. I 
think that's probably close to August 2. I don't know that it's the 
accurate date of August 2, however. So I just caution people to think 
about what it really means when you hear a Cabinet official take a 
position and promise Americans that they can count on their word. You 
know, they're sometimes falling on their sword for the President of the 
United States.
  In fact, the Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner, doesn't give me 
a lot of confidence. Just a few weeks ago as he was under oath before 
the Small Business Committee, I asked him his opinion on several of the 
top economists that America and the world have produced throughout 
history. A couple of those people would be Adam Smith and John Maynard 
Keynes. And Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner's response was--and 
I remind you, Madam Speaker, under oath--his response was, he is not an 
economist; therefore, he wouldn't offer an opinion on lead economists 
in the history of the country and the world because he's not a trained 
economist.
  So when Tim Geithner tells us that we have a deadline of August 2 and 
it's a potential calamity, is he giving us an economic opinion? He 
refused to give an economic opinion when he was under oath. So when 
he's in front of the press, is that a different equation? Is he an 
economist or isn't he? He says he's not. If he says he's not, then 
should I accept his word that the Secretary of the Treasury is not an 
economist?
  Therefore, I would have to tell you, Madam Speaker, I would discount 
his opinion because he's a self-professed noneconomist. And it seems as 
though America wants to accept the word of the Secretary of the 
Treasury even though he has put disclaimers out there on his own 
credibility multiple times. And I will just put another disclaimer out 
there on his own credibility by saying the President of the United 
States impacts the opinion of his Cabinet members and his other 
appointees.
  So here's what the President has said, Madam Speaker, and that's 
this. In so many words, speaking of it, he said, I can't guarantee that 
the pensions of our military or that Social Security for our seniors 
will be paid on time. That was a statement that he made a little over a 
week ago. Yet I listened to that. Madam Speaker, I have to tell you 
that it wasn't a directly factual statement made by the President. He 
has to know this. He has to know the truth.
  The truth is the President of the United States is the only person 
who can guarantee that our military pensions are paid on time, and he's 
the only person that can guarantee our Social Security is paid on time. 
He's the only person that can guarantee that the revenue stream that's 
coming in, which is $200 billion a month, on average, would be used in 
a priority fashion to service our debt, to pay our military on time, to 
pay the military pensions on time, to take care of our national 
security interests, to pay the Social Security on time, and to pay the 
Medicare bills on time.

                              {time}  1150

  Take the seniors off the table, along with our military, as I have 
clearly advocated when I introduced the Promises Act a little over a 
week ago. The Promises Act pays our military first, services our debt 
second; goes no further than that. We did a major press conference on 
that issue--myself, Congressman Gohmert, and Michele Bachmann of 
Minnesota. We laid that principle out.
  There are others that have good bills out here. Tom McClintock has a 
good bill that requires that we service our debt, pay the debt on time. 
It's called the Full Faith and Credit Act. It's mirrored, I believe, 
off of that of Pat Toomey in the Senate. It has a good number of 
cosponsors.
  Louie Gohmert has a good bill that guarantees that our troops are 
paid on time every time. It doesn't go far enough. It's got a sunset 
date on it. It doesn't happen to include hitting a debt ceiling. It 
addresses the funding gap that came from the CR a few months ago, but 
the concept of it is good, and he's led very well on it.
  Dan Webster from Florida has a very good prioritization bill. His 
bill, and should we send it to to the President and it becomes law, 
services the debt first. That's about $20 billion a month. It pays the 
military second. That's about $11 billion a month. And now that's $31 
billion. If you divide 31 billion by 200 billion, 31 divided by 200 
works out to be 15.2 percent. So 15.2 percent of the incoming revenue 
stream is all that it takes to guarantee that our military is paid on 
time every time, and that they, in harm's way, defending our liberty 
with their lives on the line and sacrificing their lives from time to 
time, should never have to wonder if their earned paycheck is going to 
be transferred into their account for their family on time every time. 
That should be a guarantee that this Congress makes, and it should be a 
guarantee that lasts for all time. My bill does that.
  I believe the language in Daniel Webster's bill does that as well. 
But, in any case, his services the debt first, pays the military 
second, provides that the President can direct funding into national 
security issues third, pays the Social Security fourth and the Medicare 
bills fifth. I actually think his is the best bill. I would take it and 
massage it and flip a couple of things within it, but I am not taking a 
deep objection to it, nor do I think that we wouldn't get the job done 
with Dan Webster's bill. I think we would.
  But I would like to see a prioritization bill be moved here in the 
House of Representatives and send it over to the Senate. We've already 
passed Cut, Cap, and Balance. We've said, Here's the debt ceiling 
increase. You send a constitutional amendment to the States so they can 
ratify an amendment that guarantees that this Congress would be bound 
to a balanced budget.
  The balanced budget amendment passed here in this House in 1995, and 
it was messaged down that hallway to the Senate in '95. And it was 
brought up on the floor of the Senate with the votes counted for 
passage. One Senator flipped unexpectedly, and the balanced budget 
amendment failed on the floor of the Senate that day in '95. Had that 
balanced budget amendment passed, it would have been messaged to the 
States for ratification.
  It requires three-quarters of the States to ratify a constitutional 
amendment, which clearly would have been the case for a balanced budget 
amendment. Had the States had that opportunity, I believe they would 
have ratified a balanced budget amendment. Had they done so, I believe, 
Madam Speaker, that we would not be having

[[Page 11827]]

this discussion today. I believe that we would have enshrined in our 
Constitution a requirement that this Congress be bound by the same 
standards that most of the States are, balanced budget amendments. And 
if that had been the case, we would not be having this discussion. We 
wouldn't have this overspending. We wouldn't have more than $3 trillion 
in deficit spending that's been driven by the President of the United 
States.
  Some say Republicans are responsible, too. Republicans spent too much 
money, too, and in that case, I'd agree with that.
  But here's the real comparison, and it's this: During the height of 
the Iraq war, with expenses going out in armed conflict in the Middle 
East, when things were going badly there, this Congress came within 
$160 billion of balancing the budget. A little bit more economic 
activity, a little tweak here or there, and we would have seen a 
balanced budget in the middle of the past decade, in the middle of the 
Iraq war. We fell $160 billion short. All right. I'll take that on us. 
We should have done a better job. We should have had enough cushion 
that we achieved a balanced budget. We didn't get that done.
  But today, the President's deficit is $1.65 trillion. And I no longer 
have to say trillion with a ``t.'' I used to have to say billion with a 
``b.'' Sometimes people were thinking million when you said billion. 
But now we talk about trillions, and then the concept of we don't have 
to say trillion with a ``t'' anymore. It comes out of our mouths. We're 
discussing trillions of dollars.
  So the President has given us a $1.65 trillion single-year deficit, 
more than 10 times greater than the $160 billion deficit that 
Republicans had during the height of the Iraq war. That's his 
responsibility, over $3 trillion in deficit spending in two short 
budget years.
  By the way, no budget approved by Democrats during that period of 
time. Nothing brought up in the Senate now. We did pass the Ryan 
budget. We voted on an RSC budget. I stuck with the toughest and the 
strongest budget that we could bring to this floor, one that balanced 
in less than 9 years. I'm a little embarrassed to say that. I'm a 
little embarrassed to say a budget that balances in less than 9 years, 
but it's easier to say that than it is a budget that balances in 26 
years. And that's the budget that Democrats voted against because it 
didn't spend enough money.
  The Ryan budget balances in 26 years, when my sons are ready for 
retirement. That's too long. I want something much shorter than that. 
I'd like to find a way to balance this budget tomorrow if I could, but 
the price to do that would be too many calamities across this country. 
So we need to get there as fast as we can before the financial markets 
leave us. We need to get there before we become the Greece of the 
world. This isn't going to wait 26 years to be resolved.
  And if you want to push the American economy and our credit over the 
edge, just adopt the ideas that come out of the Democrat side of the 
aisle or out of the Harry Reid majority in the Senate--the ideas that 
we should extend the debt ceiling without restraint; whatever the 
President asks for, give it to him; let him borrow and spend money--and 
somehow or another, the magic of Obamanomics is going to create this 
huge economic chain letter of spending. There's always another sucker 
in a chain letter, isn't there? The President believes that. He 
believes there's always another sucker in a chain letter. And so he 
wants to borrow and borrow and borrow and spend and spend and spend and 
take something like FDR's New Deal to the infinite power and apply it 
to today's economy, and somehow the magic of the consumer-driven 
economy will save us from our lack of discipline, and the economy will 
start to grow again.
  I'll submit, Madam Speaker, another viewpoint on this. I think this. 
I think that last summer was not ``recovery summer'' as it was declared 
to be by the President of the United States. Nobody is saying this 
summer is ``recovery summer'' with 9.2 percent unemployment. I would 
submit instead that we have to recover from Obamanomics before we 
actually will be in recovery.
  We may have already recovered from the downward spiral of the 
recession that was the financial crisis that came to us in the fall of 
2008. We may have already recovered from that, but we've not recovered 
from Obamanomics. We've not recovered from the economic stimulus plan. 
We've not recovered from the $3 trillion in unnecessary spending. We 
have interest. We have to service this debt.
  I think there are a good number of Americans by now that have lived 
through this, and on the other side of this recession that we've been 
in, they will be learning this again, this thing that I know from 
experience, and it's this: If you are too highly leveraged, another 
loan--borrowing more money with more interest to pay and more principal 
to pay--doesn't sometimes help you. Sometimes when you're too highly 
leveraged, you just simply have to go broke and declare that you're 
insolvent, and now maybe you get a chance to start again.
  But businesses have been beaten down, beaten down, beaten down, and 
along comes a natural disaster, like, for example--to inject it into 
this Congressional Record--the natural disaster of the Missouri River 
floods of 2011 that go on right now. We have victims that are 
underwater now and that are so far behind that a disaster loan at low 
interest rates over a long term doesn't help them because they won't be 
able to service their loan.

                              {time}  1200

  They won't have the cash flow to do it. They will just have another 
interest payment; they will just have another principal payment, and it 
weighs them down to the point where they can't recover.
  This Federal Government could find itself in the same position. The 
Federal Government has to pay the interest; the Federal Government has 
to pay the principal. Who's going to pay that? The American people. It 
has to come out of the profits of the private sector in order for that 
to happen.
  And when we look at the growth in government spending and government 
spending-created jobs when it's created from borrowed money, it's got 
to come from somewhere. Where does it come from? It comes from the 
private sector. What does the private sector produce that can be tapped 
and taxed by, let's say, Tim Geithner, the IRS? Well, first of all, the 
Federal Government taxes all productivity in America. Every single 
thing that's productive the Federal Government has figured out how to 
tax.
  If you punch a time clock in the morning--let's say Monday morning, 8 
o'clock, Americans by the millions step up and punch that time clock. 
From that instant forward, Uncle Sam has his hand out. It just comes 
out automatically. He hears the time clock, and his hand goes out. It's 
like a Pavlovian reflex that comes from Uncle Sam. There's a mystical 
little image of Uncle Sam there beside that time clock, and when he 
hears that noise, it's like Pavlov's dog. When he heard the bell ring, 
he salivated because he got fed when the bell rang. And when the time 
clock kicks in, Uncle Sam's hand goes out.
  And all the money that you earn from that moment forward until he 
gets his fill goes into Uncle Sam's hand for that day. And some time--
oh, maybe, if you're lucky, before noon--he gets enough of it that he 
can put his hand in his pocket and walk away for the day. Uncle Sam has 
taxed--he has punished, actually--your productivity because there is a 
disincentive to produce if the government is going to take your 
production from you and put it in its pocket.
  Now, we don't mind sharing some of this. I mean, we go to church and 
provide our donations there, and Americans are very generous people 
when it comes to charity. There is no one more generous than Americans 
when it comes to that. But it is discouraging to have the Federal 
Government take the first dollar from the first hour and every dollar 
from every hour until they get all that they want. But that's what 
happens.
  But out of that, out of that first lien on all productivity--and by 
the way, Madam Speaker, it's not just those people who punch the time 
clock; it's

[[Page 11828]]

those people that work on commission, too. If your commission check is, 
say, 10 percent of what you sell, Uncle Sam is going to get his out of 
that before you get your commission. You all know that. If you have 
earnings, savings or investment, Uncle Sam is going to get his tax out 
of that, too. It is a punishment for productivity.
  The Federal Government taxes all productivity in America, and they 
tax it first. They have the first lien on all earnings, savings and 
investment in America. And then out of that--and by the way, that 
private sector that I'm talking about produces goods and services that 
have a marketable value here in this country and abroad. That's our 
export market. That's what has value. And the rest of all of this is 
just what supports it and what runs off of taxes on it, but you have to 
increase the productivity of your goods and services that have a 
marketable value domestically and abroad if you're going to recover 
from this economy.
  The private sector in America has to produce those goods and services 
in a volume and in a competitive way adequate to recover now from 
Obamanomics, to recover from the more than $3 trillion in irresponsible 
spending. And it has to have enough confidence that the government is 
not going to step in and punish that productivity and tax that 
productivity by increasing taxes on it or putting that heavy burden of 
regulation on it, and someone put out a number here a couple of weeks 
ago that the annual burden of regulation is something like $1.7 
trillion a year in America.
  I can tell you, Madam Speaker, what it was like for me when I started 
a business up in 1975. I didn't have any money, I didn't have any 
capital, but I thought I knew how to do something that had a marketable 
value, and I had enough confidence to step up and do that; but my fear 
was, not that I couldn't do the work or that I couldn't market, sell my 
skills or that I couldn't manage the books or fix the equipment or get 
it moved to the location or do the job, do all the things that were 
part of the function of the business that I started.
  My fear was that the government would come in and punish me in a way 
that I didn't expect, that the government would come in and maybe do an 
IRS audit at a time that--we all feared the IRS then. I think we do 
now. That happened. It happened over and over again. It looked like the 
IRS wanted to haunt me there for a while. And to this day, I don't 
think that I did anything other than comply with all of those laws. I 
was punished anyway.
  Another fear I had was: What about government regulation? How could I 
possibly know which government regulator would come swooping in on me 
and shut my business down and punish me with penalties that I couldn't 
anticipate? Fortunately, I was never really at that point where the 
regulators came in and shut me down in that fashion, but many 
businesses have been. The weight of this regulation--if that's the 
number, $1.7 trillion a year--is a tremendous amount of American 
capital that is consumed in trying to comply with regulators.
  I would pose this question, Madam Speaker: Out of the millions of 
businesses that there are, let's just say, does anyone know of a single 
business in America that has ever uttered a statement or put up on 
their Web site or printed a business card that would say words to the 
effect of: ``We are in compliance with all government regulations''? 
Can anybody think of a single business that has made such a statement 
or taken such a stand? I'd say not.
  Now, I ask that question because it is a good question that calls us 
to examine why it is that no business claims that they're complying 
with all government regulations. The reason is because it's impossible, 
Madam Speaker.
  Years ago, I had a task of doing seminars in five different States at 
State conventions. And one of the things that I began to do was ask my 
colleagues who were in similar business--and these were self-employed 
people. Most of them started the businesses themselves. Sometimes they 
were second- and third-generation businesses as King Construction is 
today, a second-generation business.
  But I would ask the question, How many agencies regulate our trade, 
Earth-moving business? How many agencies regulate our trade? And so 
they would say, well, the EPA does and the DNR does and the IRS does 
and the DOT does and the tax man does. And as we began writing that 
down on a--it was a chalkboard in those days--we came to this 
conclusion that we were directly regulated by 43 different agencies. So 
I would begin to ask the question--in a closed room, no press--are you 
in compliance with these EPA regulations? And then we would have a long 
discussion about how hard it was.
  And they were never comfortable, even back then in the eighties, that 
they were in compliance with the EPA regulations, because they could 
always be read in a different way by the next generation of 
environmental extremists that would get a job. Where would you go? What 
if you're genetically born to be an environmental extremist? Where 
would you look for a job? The EPA. And wouldn't you think that you had 
a cause that was as worthy as the cause of your father or your mother, 
who advanced the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act and a 
number of the other environmental legislation that passed through here 
without a lot of restraint in the seventies, and had some justification 
then, and did clean up our waters and our sewers and our landfills and 
continue to do so to this day?
  They had a cause. They were on a crusade of environmental clean-up 
back in the seventies, and now their children have jobs working for the 
EPA, and they have a belief and a conviction and a crusade that is as 
powerful to them as it was to their parents or their successors, the 
earlier generation.
  But we've cleaned up the environment a lot since the seventies. Most 
people now enjoy clean water and good sanitary sewer systems and a 
pretty good system of handling the waste that comes out of society. But 
the people that are involved as regulators don't see it that way 
because they have a cause, and now they think they need to trudge 
forward on a cause. They will never be satisfied because that's what 
they do.
  So regulations are never going to be all complied with; they keep 
changing the rules as you go forward. Now they want to regulate anybody 
that has a 1,000-gallon fuel tank, that it has to have a storage levee 
or dike built around it or some type of a structural containment for 
that, as if there's going to be a spill in every location and it can't 
be cleaned up. Well, we know they can be cleaned up. We don't have a 
problem, but they have a solution for us regardless. That's just the 
EPA. And we can go on down the line.
  Is anybody in compliance with every IRS opinion?

                              {time}  1210

  The old story goes this way. If you want an argument, just ask two 
lawyers their opinion. Well, if you want an argument, just ask two 
representatives of the IRS their opinion and you will get two different 
opinions, almost as a rule. Anything that's halfway contentious, you'll 
get two different opinions, which means no one can be confident they 
are in compliance with the IRS rules because the rules aren't clear 
enough. Even the people who enforce them can't agree what they are. We 
can go on down the line.
  In my State, the Department of Natural Resources, they do enforce the 
EPA rules. There are conflicting opinions there, and the conflicting 
opinions go on and on and on. But, Madam Speaker, it's not just 43 
agencies. Those are the 43 that we identified that regulated my trade 
back in the 1980s. Now there's a Web site called Constitution Daily 
that counted these all up a couple of years ago, and they came up with 
682 different agencies. Now, I'll admit, these are departments and 
divisions of agencies, but 682 entities that regulate in America--682. 
No one person could memorize them all. It's impossible to know all of 
the regulations that they have written.
  We have ObamaCare now coming at us, grinding up and consuming 
American liberty. And what do we get out of

[[Page 11829]]

that? 2,600 pages of legislation, and the regulations at this point 
have reached over 8,700 pages of regulations just on ObamaCare. And we 
saw here the other day that the CEO of Home Depot said he believes that 
ObamaCare, itself, will generate over 150,000 pages of regulation.
  Now, it makes it real clear, even if you are a huge, huge 
corporation, you cannot analyze all of this and be sure that you are in 
compliance with regulations. So what do businesses do? One is they 
don't start up because of fear of all of this. Who in their right mind 
would start up a business right now that employed 51 people, for 
starters? They would be under the requirement to establish the health 
insurance plan that the government would approve for every one of their 
employees. So instead, they sit on their capital and they don't invest, 
and part of it is the tax burden.
  Another thing we know is if this Congress doesn't act between now and 
the end of 2012, we will see a huge tax increase. That was part of the 
negotiations last fall that bridged us over until we get past another 
Presidential election. So we have a huge tax increase ahead of us when 
the Bush brackets expire, and it triggers back in all of those 
brackets--all of that going on--while there is $23.6 billion that is 
automatically appropriated, that $23.6 billion of the $105.5 billion 
that is automatically appropriated, and I say deceptively appropriated 
in ObamaCare, itself.
  So we have ObamaCare regulations going in place. The roots of 
ObamaCare are going down. The American people are starting to think 
that we don't have the determination here in this House to repeal 
ObamaCare.
  I come here, Madam Speaker, to remind you and anybody that might be 
listening to this deliberation here on the floor of the House that this 
House has passed the repeal of ObamaCare. Every Republican voted to 
repeal ObamaCare. We sent it over to the Senate. The Senate also held a 
vote, and every Republican in the Senate voted to repeal ObamaCare. 
However, they didn't pass the repeal in the Senate, and so the repeal 
failed. Well, that had something to do with the President, who has a 
lot of belief in his signature piece of legislation. His future and his 
destiny are wrapped up in ObamaCare.
  However, we know that the American people have said that they want 
all of ObamaCare ripped out by the roots. They want it gone, lock, 
stock, and barrel, with not one shred, not one DNA particle of 
ObamaCare left behind. The American people understand that ObamaCare is 
a malignant tumor that is metastasizing and consuming the liberty of 
the American people, and it must be repealed. This House is resolute in 
their repealing of ObamaCare.
  We have also passed out of this House with a significant majority the 
legislation that cuts off all funding that would be used to enforce or 
implement ObamaCare. We did that as a part of the CR that came out of 
here that finally the President signed. They stripped the funding out 
of it and voted it out in the Senate at the direction of Harry Reid.
  So, Madam Speaker, this House is resolute. The American people are 
resolute. And I will make this prediction that I think needs to be 
understood, and that is this: If President Obama is reelected in 2012, 
that will guarantee that all of ObamaCare will be implemented and 
enforced. That operation of its implementation will be completed by 
2014. That's kind of the schedule that it's on now. If the President is 
reelected, we get ObamaCare as the law of the land in perpetuity.
  If he is not and we elect another President, a different President, 
that will be on the foundation that we will repeal ObamaCare under the 
signature of the next President of the United States.
  I see that the Speaker of the House has arrived on the floor, and I'd 
be happy to yield to whatever cause that might be.
  Mr. BOEHNER. Let me thank my colleague for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, there is a huge gulf between Washington, D.C., and the 
American people. They are dealing with tough times. They're struggling 
to pay their bills. They look to Washington, and they see politicians 
who can't stop spending money, their money.
  Listen, we're broke, and we need to stop the out-of-control spending 
spree that's going on in Washington, D.C.
  The House has acted. We passed a bill that raised the debt limit, 
cuts spending, puts real reforms in place, and requires that Congress 
send to the States a balanced budget amendment. It's called Cut, Cap, 
and Balance. We've done our job.
  The Democrats who run Washington have done nothing. They can't stop 
spending the American people's money. They won't, and they have 
refused. The Senate majority leader says that they won't offer a plan 
to cut spending or a plan to raise the debt limit. Frankly, that's 
irresponsible.
  Mr. Speaker, where is their plan?
  President Obama talks about being the adult in the room. Where is his 
plan to cut spending and raise the debt limit?
  Listen, we're in the fourth quarter here. We're fighting for jobs; 
we're fighting for the country's future, and we're fighting for the 
American people.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, may I inquire how much time I 
have remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gardner). The gentleman has 
approximately 12 minutes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  I am very happy that the Speaker arrived on the floor to make that 
point. The point is this: We have passed Cut, Cap, and Balance. We have 
done our job. Now the challenge is for the United States Senate and the 
President of the United States to do their job.
  I would prefer they just accept the model that has been messaged down 
that hallway over to the Senate, and I'd prefer that the President 
would endorse that and step up in the next few minutes and say let's 
get this done. This can be done in a very short period of time. All we 
have to do is agree. Instead, the President and the Democrats in the 
majority in the Senate seem to want to insist upon tax increases being 
part of any package that might come through.
  Well, this goose that lays the golden egg is the free enterprise 
private sector goose. This goose has to live off of some profits, and 
they have to have profit in order to have jobs.
  I would add to the Speaker's statement the question about it has been 
about jobs. We've done our job. This is about jobs. But I think we fail 
to remind the American people that wages are what pay for jobs. Nobody 
is going to say, I have a job, but it doesn't pay. The money has to 
come from somewhere. Where does it come from?
  That needs to be stated and restated that the money for wages that 
pays for jobs has to come out of profit. Nobody can operate at a loss, 
so companies have to make some money. If they don't have an opportunity 
to do so because of the burden of taxes or because of the burden of 
regulation or the burden of the indecision in not knowing what the 
government is going to do next, which keeps a lot of that capital on 
the sidelines, they are not going to expand or do new hires. In fact, 
they're not going to provide wages and benefit packages of increases 
unless they have profit.

                              {time}  1220

  So I'm one of those people that thinks I want businesses to make 
money. I want them to make money, and I want them to expand the jobs, 
and I want them to invest the money with confidence they can make more. 
If it goes to their head too far and they become too vertically 
integrated or too monopolistic, then it's up to the entrepreneurs out 
there to take a look and say, I think I can gather the capital together 
and compete against them and provide a good or a service that has a 
better value--and make money doing it. And in doing so, that profit 
turns into jobs.
  I am one who has met payroll for over 1,440 consecutive weeks. I made 
it every week on time. There were times that we didn't do very well in 
our household because I paid me last. I paid the employees first 
because they're the frontline troops. I paid the interest at

[[Page 11830]]

the bank second because I had to have the capital to operate. You set 
those priorities when you go through those things. But jobs come from 
profit. And let's have a scenario that allows businesses to invest and 
to have confidence in the future. And Cut, Cap, and Balance does lay 
out the right scenario.
  I know that Speaker Boehner has been concerned about hitting this 
August 2 deadline that I think is not as hard a deadline as Tim 
Geithner believes it is. I think the Secretary of the Treasury is 
carrying water for the President of the United States and putting 
statements out there. I think the President of the United States is 
willfully scaring seniors.
  I think he's doing so when he says that he can't guarantee that 
military pensions or Social Security would be paid on time. Mr. 
Speaker, yes, they can. The only person on the planet that can 
guarantee they would be paid on time is the President of the United 
States. So you couldn't be any more wrong than when he says he can't 
guarantee it. Yes, he can. Does he know this truth? Can he not 
understand his job? He seems to exert his power where it doesn't exist. 
Doesn't he know that he can exert his power where it does exist?
  I'll just tell this anecdote that was part of a political commercial, 
and I'll let people draw their own conclusions on this. Back in 1996, 
when Bill Clinton was up for reelection, there was a commercial that 
was run, and it was the face and voice of--a lot of us think of him as 
Moses since he passed away--Charlton Heston. He looked into the camera, 
and he was speaking presumably to President Clinton when he said, Mr. 
President, when you say something that's wrong and you don't know that 
it's wrong, that's a mistake. But when you say something that's wrong 
and you know that it's wrong, that's a lie. That was what Charlton 
Heston said back in 1996.
  I reflect upon those words today, and I make this point that I know 
the truth. The American people need to know the truth. And that truth 
is the President of the United States can set the priorities on how to 
spend the $200 billion a month on average that comes in in revenue 
stream. All he has to do is step outside the Oval Office, step up to 
the microphones in the East Room or outside in this nice, beautiful, 
warm summertime we have in Washington, D.C., and say, I'm going to set 
those priorities.
  If we can't make a deal with Speaker Boehner, who was just here on 
the floor, and with Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell and all the folks 
that have to vote in the Senate--and by the way, the people that have 
to vote here in the House--if we can't make a deal, here's what I'd do. 
The President could do this in the next minute. I'm going to make sure 
our troops get paid first--on time every time. He can say that. He can 
say, And right behind that $11 billion a month comes $20 billion a 
month out of the funding stream we have. Whether we borrow or not, I'm 
going to guarantee that we service our debt, $20 billion. And then, I 
want to make sure to take care of the national security issues. Those 
things will change, but I'll work those priorities. Right behind that 
we'll pay Social Security, and right behind that we'll pay Medicare.
  If the President stood up and said that, we would have confidence 
that he isn't going to be in the business of scaring seniors or putting 
doubt into the minds of our military while they are dodging bullets in 
places like Afghanistan. We would have confidence. But instead, he says 
he can't guarantee. Mr. Speaker, we know he can. We know he can 
guarantee. We should push that on him out of this House to let him know 
where we stand so the American people understand there is a moral 
standard here. One is: Tell the truth. The second moral standard is: 
Pay our military. The third moral standard is: Guarantee the full faith 
and credit of the United States Government. I've laid out the rest of 
these priorities, Mr. Speaker.
  Cut, Cap, and Balance is an important position to stand on. This 
leverage that's here now must be used or we shirk our responsibility. 
Had the leverage been stronger back in 1995, that extra vote in the 
Senate that I spoke about some minutes ago would have been there, I 
believe. I believe the balanced budget amendment would have been sent 
to the States, and I believe the States would have ratified it. If that 
had been part of the Constitution the day I came here in January of 
2003, I wouldn't have had to walk around on this floor and go find the 
chairman of the Budget Committee and say, Where's our balanced budget? 
And I wouldn't have gotten the answer back that I did get that day, We 
can't balance the budget. It's too hard. Well, if it was too hard in 
January of 2003, how hard is it now? It is a lot harder.
  Yes, we can balance the budget. The States do that. The question 
becomes: When we send a balanced budget amendment to the States, do 
they ratify it? A lot of them would right away. Some of them would hold 
a special session to ratify a balanced budget to send that message as 
quickly as possible. But then you get out there to some of those States 
that have decided that they want to do irresponsible spending. 
California and Illinois come to mind. A lot of States went to 
austerity. They decided, We're going to borrow money, and we're going 
to ask the Federal Government to bail us out. In those States, if 
they're needed for ratification, there will have to be a changing of 
the political guard within their State legislatures. That means 
constitutional conservatives will step up, step out of their normal 
walk of life, advance themselves as candidates to run for State 
legislatures on the agenda of: I will go there, and I will push to 
ratify a constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. Those 
candidates that stand on that position will be elected in significant 
numbers in the States where they're needed. And over a period of time 
we have a chance that the State legislatures would ratify--three-
quarters of them--a balanced budget amendment. If that happens, it 
would be a wonderful gift for our posterity. It would be one of the 
best things that we could do in a generation, Mr. Speaker. And I urge 
that the American people weigh in on this and demand that the Senate 
and the President embrace Cut, Cap, and Balance.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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