[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11990-11996]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       SOLUTIONS FOR OUR COUNTRY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Perry). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2013, the gentlewoman from Alabama (Mrs. Roby) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mrs. ROBY. Mr. Speaker, I am so pleased to have the opportunity 
tonight to be here in this Chamber with so many of our colleagues, 
either to discuss solutions--solutions for our country, solutions for 
our economy--and I am just going to invite my colleagues to 
participation in the conversation as they see fit.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to just point out to you that we have reached out 
to our constituents about this leadership hour tonight on Twitter using 
#4jobs; and, Mr. Speaker, we are hopeful that tonight during this hour, 
we will continue that conversation with our constituents at #4jobs.
  I have a lot of comments from my constituents back home that I'm 
eager to share as we go through this hour. I want to point out what 
many of you may have already read, and that is that the President has 
stated that he plans to pivot, once again, back to jobs and the 
economy. I thought, well, that's great news. That's what we have been 
pushing here. Many of you have seen us carrying around our laminated 
cards that talk about all of the jobs bills that we've passed in this 
Congress and, last, trying to promote economic growth in this country, 
to help get hardworking, taxpaying Americans back to work.
  But I lost my enthusiasm when buried in that article was the 
President's statement: White House officials said three speeches will 
not offer new proposals or approaches.
  So we're going to pivot back to jobs and the economy, but we have no 
new approaches and we have no new ideas. That to me is a pivoting of 
message and not a pivoting of policy. We are watching, and all of us 
have stories of going back home to our constituents and meeting with 
American families that continue to struggle. The rhetoric that we all 
feel is not helping the reality of the situation of the people that we 
were sent here to represent.
  We are not losing faith; the American people are not losing faith 
because the President's message isn't working. They are losing faith 
because his policies aren't working. I'm the first to say

[[Page 11991]]

that we've got to quit doing a lot of this pointing fingers, so I'm 
hopeful that tonight we can have this conversation, and I have some 
solutions that I'd like to put out there. You can't criticize without 
coming behind it and offering a solution. We've continuously done that 
in this House and will continue to do so, Mr. Speaker.
  I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. I thank the gentlelady from Alabama for 
organizing this. It is great to be joined with you on this very 
important subject, the idea that over 7.5 percent of our fellow 
neighbors--and by the way, the President's own State of Illinois, it's 
higher than 7.5 percent. If you want to see what Big Government is 
going to eventually do, just look in my home State. You're going to see 
people that are desperately searching for work, that wake up every day 
just wondering if they are going to get a paycheck. If they have a job, 
they're wondering, Is this the last day? Am I going to go into work 
today and get that pink slip? Am I going to go into work today and have 
to tell my wife or husband or kids that we're going to have to tighten 
the belt because dad or mom just lost their job?
  Illinois has been hit very hard. The reason Illinois has been hit 
very hard is not because it is cold. It is cold in Illinois sometimes 
in the winter, and my friend from Colorado can talk about that, too. 
It's not because it's flat, although parts of Illinois are very flat. 
Illinois, in fact, used to be and still maintains some edge, but used 
to be the powerhouse for manufacturing in the country, but we've seen 
the disappearing of manufacturing. And in the bipartisan spirit of not 
trying to point too many fingers, I'll say that's happened under all 
administrations, where we've seen manufacturing leave. But the one 
difference between Illinois and what we've seen, and the States that 
surround us, is a big, stifling, bloated, bureaucratic government, a 
government that is so big it takes away the opportunity for the free 
market to breathe.
  Mr. Speaker, I understand, and I'll be the first to admit that my 
party, the Republican Party, has not done a great job of messaging. I 
think that's the understatement of the century. Sometimes we get 
absorbed in the idea of numbers, and we talk about what it means to 
balance the budget, but we don't explain why we want to balance the 
budget. Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk about the 
middle class and those in lower incomes.
  My father ran a homeless shelter, and he did this for a couple of 
decades. I was raised in an environment to understand conservatism and 
how that works with those who are homeless and down and out. My mom is 
a public schoolteacher. I understand the importance of public education 
in our society. And I understand that I became a Republican because I 
believe that a kid born in inner-city Chicago just 40 or 50 minutes 
from my house should have the same opportunity as a kid born in 
Channahon, Illinois, where I live, or Inverness, Illinois, a wealthy 
suburb. They should have every opportunity to find personal achievement 
to get an education and be successful.
  I look forward to having this conversation and talking about the fact 
that there is a compassion for those who need help and the fact that 
too many people are out of work today.
  I know my colleague from Colorado (Mr. Gardner) would like to say 
some things.
  Mr. GARDNER. I thank my colleague from Illinois and the gentlelady 
from Alabama for her leadership and the things we truly need to get 
under control in order to build better lives for our families and 
families across this Nation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the time 
tonight. I know the gentleman from Illinois said that his district is 
flat. I think I'll surprise a lot of people when I say that I represent 
the second largest geographic area in the State of Colorado in Congress 
and most of my district is flat as well, so I understand what the 
gentleman is talking about when he talks about vast areas of great flat 
land in the high plains of Colorado.
  When we got elected in 2010, the three of us here tonight, who all 
got elected in 2010 because we wanted to find a way to make America 
work again, to empower people around this country, whether it was the 
inner cities of our biggest areas, to people in rural areas across 
Colorado and this Nation, empower them to build the life that they 
always wanted to, to pursue their dreams, to ensure that the American 
spirit is alive and well. I think most of us recognize that we do that 
when we give people the power to do that for themselves, to get 
government out of the way and let America work, to tear down 
regulations that prevent job creation, to help make sure that access to 
capital is easier, not more difficult, that energy is more affordable 
and not more costly. And over the past couple of years, we have pursued 
policies to do just that.
  In fact, this upcoming week, we will be voting on legislation to 
ensure that energy policies don't drive up the cost that it takes to 
power our economy, but to ensure we have a safeguard over regulations 
that cost too much, to make sure that the Department of Energy is 
paying attention to what is happening at the EPA in terms of 
regulations.
  We've passed legislation to make it easier for people in small dollar 
amounts to loan money to their neighbors, to their friends, to invest 
in businesses that they're excited about, to try to tear down hurdles 
to invest at the individual level. You don't need a stockbroker down on 
Wall Street to figure out how to get involved in the American economy. 
We've passed legislation that allows individuals to get involved at the 
very start-up level of companies, innovators and entrepreneurs around 
this country. We did it because we know there are people who have 
incredible ideas of how to create opportunity, incredible ideas of how 
to create new wealth where none existed before.
  In my district, whether it's agriculture, whether it's energy, or 
whether it's high tech, entrepreneurs are leading this Nation. And I 
know the gentlelady from Alabama and the gentleman from Illinois have 
similar experiences. We talk tonight about what we can do for this 
country and legislation that we will be introducing. But we will also 
be talking about the impediments we have to a full, healthy, economic 
recovery, and that's the President's plan.
  While the President talks a lot about the economy, and I hear that 
he's going to be talking once again about the economy, but, 
unfortunately, his actions haven't matched up and the people in this 
country are still suffering.
  Mrs. ROBY. Like I mentioned at the beginning, buried in that article 
is when the President gives these speeches over the course of the next 
few days, there will be no new approaches or ideas. I also said that we 
can't stand here and criticize without offering our own recommendations 
about how we can do this better and how we feel like we have done it 
better and offered real solutions for hardworking Americans.
  I wanted to compare some of the things that we've done with what I am 
hearing directly from my constituents. Tonight, Mr. Speaker, 
specifically we wanted to communicate with our constituents using 
#4jobs. These are some of the comments that we've gotten.
  Chris Ray from Prattville, Alabama says:

       No business is going to risk hiring full-time employees 
     like they did in the past because they will have to provide 
     health care due to ObamaCare. Change that and address the 
     widening skill gap, and I think businesses will begin to hire 
     en masse. So it's a regulation problem and an education 
     problem, in my opinion.

  That's from Chris Ray from Prattville.
  Well, let's look at our approach and how that matches up with the 
concerns of our constituents. Instead of pivoting back to no new ideas, 
because we remain focused on jobs and the economy, let's pivot away 
from ObamaCare to patient-centered health care that actually improves 
health care, brings down the cost, takes a market approach to help 
struggling families, and makes it harder for small businesses to hire; 
a health care system that ensures when you are sick, you and your 
doctor are

[[Page 11992]]

in the driver's seat and making the decisions.
  And then to address the concerns of Mr. Ray from Prattville, Alabama, 
about overburdensome regulations, we want to pivot again back to all 
these bills that we have offered that ease burdensome regulations so 
that businesses are free to expand and invest and hire so more people 
have good jobs.
  Okay, so what regulations? I can look at any one of you and you could 
say, Keystone pipeline, the hindrance of allowing that to move forward; 
replacement to the health care law. I had a bill, the Working Families 
Flexibility Act, that amended part of the Fair Labor Standards Act, a 
70-year-old restriction that doesn't allow compensatory time in lieu of 
cash payments for overtime in the private sector which would help these 
very Americans that we're talking about, about providing flexibility in 
the workforce and all of the uncertainty that we see. We have stood on 
this floor many times talking about testimonials that we have heard 
directly from business owners.

                              {time}  1930

  And it just never ceases to amaze me that we're having these 
discussions here. But we're all about to go home in August, and I would 
love to hear from even our colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
about what they're hearing from their businesses. Do they feel 
certainty? Do they feel like they can ramp things up and hire more 
people in this uncertain environment with all of this overburdensome 
regulation that we're trying so hard to ease so more Americans can have 
jobs?
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. I just would like to add to that.
  So, you know, we talked about regulations, and I know, look, the vast 
majority of Americans, myself included, are not small business owners. 
And so the vast majority of Americans can listen to this and say, I 
understand in theory what's being said, but it's not something I 
necessarily feel.
  So let's try to put this in a way that I think a lot of people can 
relate to. If you're looking at buying a house, now, you have a big 
decision to make. You're ready to buy a new house. You've got a family 
you're providing for. You know what your budget is, what you can afford 
on a mortgage. You know what you can afford for your property taxes.
  But let's say there's a lot of government uncertainty out there. 
Let's say, first off, you may not have a job in 6 months because of 
this economy. You may be saying, Boy, I just don't know what my cash 
flow is going to be like, and I don't know if it's going to be there.
  Well, let's relate that to the bigger economy. These companies don't 
necessarily know what's going to be brought and put before them by 
Washington, D.C., what it's going to cost them.
  Let's say your local government was threatening to raise property 
taxes in a major way. Well, now that comes into play.
  Let's say there was a threat of losing your home mortgage interest 
deduction, and so, as you put that into play and you're trying to 
decide ``Do I buy this house?'' now that's a threat.
  And you watch the television, and all over the television the idea is 
homes are collapsing in value. We remember that from a few years ago. 
That's uncertainty. That's the kind of uncertainty that every day 
Americans feel, the kind of uncertainty that you wake up sometimes in a 
cold sweat because you don't necessarily know what the next month is 
going to look like.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, that's our point is take that uncertainty that an 
individual feels, but now put that on a bigger level of a business 
owner, a business owner who sometimes is the last person to get paid 
because they sign everybody else's paycheck first.
  And sometimes these small business owners are literally in tears at 
night. They're in bed; they don't know whether they can make payroll. 
They know they have 5 or 10 people that are relying on them to provide 
that paycheck because they have families, too. That's a lot of 
pressure.
  So we're not talking about making businesses not pay taxes. We're not 
talking about getting rid of all regulations and letting this be the 
Wild West of business, but we're talking about creating a level of 
certainty that these businesses can plan, and they can begin to know 
what they can do and take a deep breath and create jobs.
  Mrs. ROBY. I want to share something that I pasted on Facebook last 
week, and it was an article. Many of you may have seen it, but it was 
in The Washington Post last Wednesday, and this is what I wrote:
  If you've ever wondered just how ridiculous Federal regulations can 
be, just ask Marty the Magician. This front-page Washington Post 
article tells the story about how USDA regulators required a children's 
magician to license his trick rabbit and even compile an animal 
disaster plan to comply with the Federal mandates. It's a lighthearted 
tale, but the rabbit trail of regulations Marty was forced to navigate 
illustrates a lesson in one of Washington's bad old habits: the 
tendency to pile new rules on top of old ones, with officials using 
good intentions and vague laws to expand the outrage of the total 
bureaucracy.
  If you haven't seen that, I strongly encourage you to get online and 
find a copy of it. It is a funny story, but it's really sad at the same 
time because it shows and highlights exactly what you're talking about 
for a guy that just wants to pull a rabbit out of a hat for some kids 
at a birthday party.
  Mr. GARDNER. I've talked to countless individuals, business owners, 
people who wanted to start a business, that talked about what it took 
for them to get started. Some of them maxed out every credit card that 
they had. They applied for more credit cards just so they could max out 
to try to get the business off the ground.
  Others are looking at it, saying, you know, I've got some great ideas 
where we could grow, we could expand, or I could even start my own 
business, but I can't do that because we don't have the ability or the 
means to do that.
  But to your point about the USDA requiring a license of somebody's 
rabbit, The Wall Street Journal recently talked about a Competitive 
Enterprise Institute study estimating that Federal regulations cost 
over $1.8 trillion. Now, that's nearly $15,000 for every American 
household, $15,000 that, before you can start your business, before you 
do anything else, is already built into the cost of doing business. 
That's already part of the factor you have to overcome the regulations. 
$1.8 trillion, that's about the same size as Canada's GDP, the gross 
domestic product of Canada.
  We are regulating this country to the size of Canada's gross domestic 
product; and yet we're hoping to solve our unemployment problem by 
getting people to put it all on the line and risk their houses, their 
lives to go out and start something, to go out and take a risk, and yet 
we have regulations, $15,000 every household.
  How can we expect this economy to recover when we have the 
uncertainty, whether it's the President's health care bill, whether 
it's uncertainty over energy regulations, coal ash bills that we'll be 
dealing with this week, or, indeed, licensing a rabbit at USDA?
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. I understand that. And look, as we go 
forward, you hear the rhetoric a lot; right? I mean, the House of 
Representatives is filled with rhetoric; right? It's probably been like 
that since the day it was built and the day it was created.
  Some of the rhetoric I've heard is that our party only cares about 
big business, that we only care about the 1 percent. Recently, we 
talked about taking food from the mouths of children; right? We heard 
about that.
  Any sane, reasonable person knows that's not the case. Any sane, 
reasonable person knows, look, both sides of the aisle are very 
passionate about the future of the country; they want success. I think 
it's okay to have a conversation about how we get there.
  I believe that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want 
their country to be successful. I think if we can hear that they also 
agree that we want our country to be successful and we can have this 
conversation, this is so helpful.

[[Page 11993]]

  Now, let me ask, in that vein, in having a fair and honest debate 
about this, let's see what the President's plans are. I mean, we hear 
constantly more and more stimulus spending.
  Do you realize that the last stimulus bill that was really passed at 
midnight, basically, with a lot of Christmas tree ornaments for 
everybody to get ``yes'' votes, and only about 6 percent of that 
actually went to infrastructure, which is the job of the Federal 
Government in the first place; it's denoted in the Constitution. But, 
you know, interestingly to me, we spent, in one night, almost as much 
money, maybe even more money, but almost as much money as we had spent 
in Iraq to that point.
  And what did we get for it? What did we get for it? We had a promise 
of unemployment staying low. It didn't.
  Look, I get it. I believe that the President, I believe my colleagues 
on the other side of the aisle really thought this was going to be the 
thing that worked. I really believe they believed that. But it didn't. 
History shows it didn't. History shows this didn't work.
  So are we going to really, honestly, revisit the idea of more and 
more stimulus spending again?
  Mr. GARDNER. The gentleman brings up a good point. Just one instance 
of stimulus spending in my district where it actually threatens jobs, 
and that was a program that came out of the BTOP grant program to try 
to provide broadband to unserved and underserved areas across this 
country, a noble purpose, to try to make sure that we're connected to 
Internet technologies that we need with high speed, to make sure we're 
able to educate children and a competitive workforce.
  But, unfortunately, the money that came out of the stimulus actually 
was used to duplicate services by the private sector. In some areas, 
they actually overbuilt, 100 percent with government money, services, a 
fiber-optic cable that was already in place by the private sector.
  Many of these companies are very small, small co-ops, telecoms that 
can't afford to have somebody come in and undermine them with the free 
government money, trying to offer under-cost services, and yet that's 
exactly what happened in the stimulus bill. They were already providing 
the service, and yet the government came in and laid a line right next 
to the line that already existed in there. So that's what happened in 
the stimulus bill. Instead of creating jobs, it actually undermined our 
ability to build the private sector up.
  And I know the gentlelady from Alabama has been an incredible leader 
on this.
  Mrs. ROBY. Well, I just was thinking, while we were talking about 
this, part of the President's criticism in this article that came out 
is about Republicans' approach to just slashing spending.
  If any of us cannot recognize that we are spending well beyond our 
means--we have $17 trillion in debt and our 4th year with over $1 
trillion deficit. My kids, Margaret and George, are the reason that I'm 
here. Why I'm fighting is for that generation that's going to carry 
this burden after we're all gone.
  And for us to not first admit that we have a problem as we move 
toward finding solutions and admitting that we are spending well beyond 
our means, that we do have to rein in spending, that we have to change 
the approach, that's when we see our economy improve. That's when we 
see hardworking American taxpaying families begin to be able to pick up 
and make that investment that you mentioned into the business so that 
they can be the job creators.
  So this is great if the President wants to talk about this again 
because I see, for my kids' future, that this is how we're going to get 
this country back on track.
  Mr. ROTHFUS. It's a pleasure to join this conversation. I thank the 
gentlelady from Alabama for starting it.
  And we've heard this phrase for years now, ``pivot to jobs.'' And, 
frankly, I'm new here. I've been here a little over 6 months, maybe 7 
months, and I've been looking at it from the outside, and I haven't 
seen that pivot to jobs.
  And sometimes folks hear that phrase in Washington, D.C., and they 
think ``pivot to jobs.'' Well, what they really mean is pivot to 
government, and that's certainly what we've seen. Every time they think 
they're going to do something to help the job market, they pivot to 
more and more government.
  Remember when they passed the health care bill, it was suggested that 
this is going to be a job creator. Well, it really hasn't been, and 
we're talking to businesses time and again who are not hiring people.
  I had a great conversation with somebody in my district, a very tough 
conversation, and she was upset because her hours are being cut back 
because of the health care bill. And of course we see this across the 
country, not just in my district.
  And then we see more government as a proposal for more jobs, but we 
see the regulations coming out of this town that are hurting the jobs 
in my district.
  Just last week, we learned that some power plants are going to be 
closing in western Pennsylvania. These power plants are not in my 
district, but you know what? There are people who support those power 
plants by providing things to those power plants. You have jobs of 
truckers, of shippers, miners.
  More regulations coming out of this town by these Federal elites 
doesn't help jobs. I'm glad that we're going to pivot to jobs.
  I've talked about how you get jobs going in this country for quite a 
long time now, and I've stumbled on to three Rs. You remember the three 
Rs from going to school.
  Well, the three Rs, I think the number one R, or the first R is 
``repeal.'' Repeal ObamaCare.
  The administration acknowledged, I think, the problems with this bill 
by coming out with a unilateral action just a couple of weeks ago, 
saying, Don't worry, big business; you don't have to comply for another 
year with the mandates here; but the everyday folks, you still have to 
comply.
  So this House, last week, took an action to provide some relief 
there. We'll give the President the authority that he assumed 
unilaterally, but it needs to come from this House, and it's called the 
rule of law, that the President--it's our authority to give that 
waiver.
  And so we passed a bill last week to say, You know what? Take another 
year. And to the individuals who are going to be struggling, give them 
the same break, too.
  Mr. GARDNER. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, I think you make some 
great points, and I just am reminded of the businesses that I've talked 
to in my district, from employers who are concerned they may have to 
reduce hours of their workforce, or employees who've already had their 
hours reduced.
  And I don't want to interrupt your comments, but I think you are 
pointing out how this is actually hurting the economy. So, as the 
President pivots to jobs, perhaps he should pivot away from the bad 
policies that are driving this economy downward.
  Mr. ROTHFUS. When you look at the regulatory framework that we have, 
this House is soon to consider a bill known as the REINS Act. It's a 
very simple bill. It basically says to the agencies that are staffed by 
bureaucrats, not by individuals who are elected, who are accountable--
the people in this House are accountable. We stand for election every 2 
years. We get a performance review every 2 years. I tell the people in 
my district I'm their employee. I'm the employee of about 705,000 
people, and I get a performance review every couple of years.
  Well, you know, the regulators, we need a check and a balance on 
them.

                              {time}  1945

  So there's a thing called the REINS Act, a very simple bill that 
talks about if an agency puts out a regulation that's going to have an 
impact on this economy of $100 million or more. And as the gentleman 
from Colorado said earlier, the SBA, the Small Business Administration, 
has said that the cost of complying with all the regulations in our 
Federal Register is $1.8 trillion across the economy. The REINS Act

[[Page 11994]]

says if you have $100 million or more in a regulation that's going to 
go on the economy, it comes back to the Congress for a vote. We get to 
take accountability there.
  And so we get to assess whether the cost benefit is going to be good 
for this economy and good for the American people. Otherwise, the out-
of-control government is going to continue to choke our communities and 
our businesses. And what happens? Middle class jobs are lost. Power 
plant workers. You can't replace jobs like that.
  Mr. GARDNER. To the gentleman from Pennsylvania, I would just point 
out that this is not a radical Republican idea. The idea behind the 
REINS Act is actually something that's embraced across many States in 
the country right now. In Colorado, we have what's called the rule 
review bill. When an agency, whether it's the Department of Health, 
whether it's the Department of Agriculture, issues a new regulation, it 
actually comes to the State legislature for a vote by the State 
legislature. The State senate and the State house get to vote up on or 
down on whether or not that regulation is in the best interest of the 
people of Colorado, if it complies with the will of the legislature and 
the executive branch is carrying it out in the right way.
  So the REINS Act that you point out is not some crazy idea. It's 
actually something that's in use right now to protect our economy from 
overreach.
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. Let me add to that. I want to briefly 
remind people about the State of Illinois. I'm so proud of the people 
of the State of Illinois. I love my State. I've lived there most of my 
life, except my time in the military. But let's look at that approach.
  That approach has been a regulatory approach. That's been a big 
government approach. In fact, you look at, again, the south part of 
Chicago, and you see I think it was like nine people killed just in 
this last weekend. It's unreal. That's more than you will find killed 
in a day in Afghanistan. And this is an American city.
  How is the best way to fix that? It's to pull people out of poverty. 
Illinois has a big government. Illinois has very generous stuff they 
give. But Illinois is not good lately at generating jobs. So does big 
government help those people in a tough situation in south Chicago? You 
know what would help the people in south Chicago is an opportunity to 
go out, work hard, earn a living, and an opportunity to get ahead. 
That's what this is about.
  This is about how do we give everybody the opportunity that all of us 
speaking on the floor of the House of Representatives have, who have 
all the different backgrounds that we've got, whether it was from our 
parents or our education or from whatever it was. How do we ensure that 
we replicate that?
  Mr. ROTHFUS. The good news is that we can do that. If we empower our 
communities, empower individuals, and empower families, we can do that. 
The solutions are not inside this Beltway. They're out there. And 
Washington needs to get out of the way so that people can take their 
own initiative and build those real economies out there.
  The third R I talked about--we've got repeal ObamaCare and replace it 
with commonsense, patient-centered reform that gets care to people. The 
second R is the REINS Act. Stop the overregulating. And thirdly, 
reform. Reform our Tax Code. We have the highest corporate tax rate in 
the world, the highest business taxes in the world. This is a world 
economy. Ninety-five percent of the consumers in the world are outside 
our borders. We need to be competing for the world's capital to come 
here to invest in our communities.
  I was talking with a business in my district that is a subsidiary. 
They have a foreign owner. But they were trying to convince the foreign 
owner to invest in our country, which would be a good thing because 
that's going to mean more jobs. The parent company said, You're just 
not competitive right now. And that's a lost opportunity.
  Our corporate tax rate is 35 percent. And do the corporations really 
pay that? Our Tax Code is so riddled with loopholes and picking the 
winners and the losers, rather than having a competitive, fair playing 
field. We have to move to have the most competitive tax system in the 
world.
  Mr. GARDNER. I was speaking to a business in my district several 
months ago, and they had a conversation with somebody who isn't 
interested in reducing the burden on American families by making common 
sense out of our Tax Code, creating a flatter, fairer tax system. This 
is a manufacturing business in Colorado. They were talking about what 
their tax rate is and that they have looked at every way, every 
provision, every code possible to try to figure out how to lower that 
rate, and they can't go any further. They're still in the lower 
thirties.
  The response they got from a legislator was, Well, you just need to 
hire a new accountant. Instead of actually trying to get to real reform 
of our Tax Code to lower the rate, flatten the code, they actually were 
told to just get a new accountant because they're not doing the right 
jobs. That's not how we're going to create jobs in this country.
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. I think the great point on that is why do 
we want to lower the tax rate, right? Is it because we want to protect 
the 1 percent? I've heard that a thousand times. And I'll be honest, I 
probably haven't been the best at coming back at that and explaining 
why we want to lower the Tax Code and why we want a fair Tax Code for 
everybody--a tax that people pay what they need to pay to the 
government, they aren't overcharged, but then people aren't also 
allowed to get away with being undercharged.
  It's because on an individual level you literally have mothers 
filling their vans up with gasoline, buying groceries, and not able to 
afford to feed their children because the government, in some cases, 
takes a third of what these single mothers make. They just take it. And 
then we see people that can get away with all the loopholes in the 
system. They hire enough accountants and they don't pay that percent.
  So let's make it fair for everybody.
  Mrs. ROBY. But we got ourselves in that trouble, as far as the 
government goes. We can't point fingers at somebody that is smart and 
figures out how to do it. What we do is fix the problem, which is the 
underlying code, by making it fairer and flatter.
  I'll just say, we were saying earlier, Mr. Speaker, that we've been 
communicating tonight with our constituents at #4Jobs. Just some of the 
things that I'm hearing go directly to this point.
  Josh from Troy says:

       Throw out the Tax Code.

  I just want to highlight that the people that we're hearing from, Mr. 
Speaker, are saying exactly what our frustrations are on this floor, as 
the President tells us to pivot back to jobs and the economy.
  James from Dothan, Alabama, says:

       Taking out ObamaCare will help free employers to hire full-
     time employees, which our economy really needs.

  Sara from Dothan:

       Health care is the biggest problem. Employers are afraid to 
     hire until they know the whole deal.

  We've talked about that in your three R's, the repeal and the replace 
being the first, about this uncertainty not just in the regulatory 
environment that businesses have to deal with, or, with the Tax Code, 
which is the point you were all just making, but also in how these laws 
are going to be implemented. We've passed these gargantuan bills. We 
don't know what's in them. And they get passed. And now the uncertainty 
associated with it.
  How many people have you talked to have had to hire a new person just 
to come into compliance with what they think the health care law might 
be, instead of hiring another individual that can then produce what 
that company produces to provide a product for this country? Instead, 
they're having to compete with all of the Federal employees that are 
put in place to implement these laws. Employers are going to go out to 
hire somebody just to come into compliance with the laws.
  Now I hear from our bankers back in our State--and you've probably 
heard

[[Page 11995]]

this one--that not only is the regulator showing up, but the regulator 
is now showing up with a lawyer as well. So the bank has to go get 
their lawyer there because they're not going to find themselves in a 
position to not be duly represented at a time when there's a Federal 
regulator in their office. This is just costing businesses more and 
more dollars.
  Mr. ROTHFUS. It's not just costing businesses. Again, for the mom 
who's sitting at that kitchen table.
  Mrs. ROBY. It's passed off to me, the consumer.
  Mr. ROTHFUS. You think of the mom who no longer has the free 
checking. They're paying the monthly bills. They're looking at that 
utility bill. The electric bill is coming in. And remember when the 
President in 2008 said that electricity rates are necessarily going to 
skyrocket with his plan? Well, there's the mom who's going through the 
monthly bills, wondering how she's going to make ends meet. And all of 
a sudden there's another $5 or $10 or whatever the charge is going to 
be for losing the free checking. That's real money. And then she goes 
to the gas tank and all of a sudden prices are going up at the gas tank 
again. Another $10 there, $10 for the checking. That's $20 right there. 
And it grows and it grows and it grows.
  Mrs. ROBY. Then she goes to the grocery store and she sees that the 
cost of milk is higher because the cost of gasoline is higher. I'm that 
mom that puts gas in her car and goes to the grocery store. And you can 
see the net effect that this has on the individual. So you're 
absolutely right. It's not just the businesses. The businesses then 
have to turn around and pass that cost on to the consumer.
  We have solutions for these problems--real commonsensical solutions 
that we have put forth and put forth and put forth, reducing the 
regulatory environment, a health care solution that works, that allows 
for individuals to make those decisions between themselves and their 
doctor, an all-of-the-above energy plan that is actually put into 
practice here in the House of Representatives instead of being that 
campaign rhetoric. We really have demonstrated our belief in our 
approach to an all-of-the-above energy plan.
  Speaking of energy, thanks for joining us.
  Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. Glad to be with you this evening.
  I thought it was interesting. You just raised the issue where the 
President said that costs would necessarily skyrocket. I actually carry 
that quote around in my back pocket. So I pulled it out, my little 
folded-up version that I have, and what he said was:

       When I was asked earlier about the issue of coal, you know, 
     under my plan of cap-and-trade system, electricity rates 
     would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say 
     about whether coal is good or bad because I'm capping 
     greenhouse gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, 
     you name it, whatever the plants were, whatever the industry 
     was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will 
     cost money.

  And you know what he said next? Exactly what you've been talking 
about. That they, talking about those plants that would have to 
retrofit, will pass that money on to consumers.
  But it's not just the higher cost to the consumers, the moms and dads 
that are going out there shopping, trying to make ends meet, trying to 
look at their grocery bill getting bigger, their gas bill getting 
bigger, et cetera, et cetera, but it's also the impact on the families. 
Because no matter what they say about we can do this with jobs and we 
can create jobs, that's not been the case, particularly in my district, 
which is a natural gas and coal-producing district.
  I was at a Remote Area Medical program this weekend in my district. 
Senator Kaine was there. I was doing intake and helping folks get those 
documents filled out. One of the people that came through was there 
because she needed some help, her husband needed some help, and her 
daughter needed some help. Her husband lost his job in the mine. This 
is happening all across my district, all through central Appalachia. 
They're laying off people. Every month, we're losing more and more 
jobs. A lot of folks don't know that those jobs are bringing in money 
to the community and that these are big-paying jobs. The estimate is 
somewhere between $75,000 and $95,000 dollars a year. That's what these 
jobs bring into the community.
  So here's a lady that needs help because they've lost their job 
because of the policies of the administration that have killed those 
jobs. But as the gentleman previously stated, it's not just the jobs in 
the coal mines, it's not just the coal operators. It's the people that 
sell the cars to the people who used to work in the mine. It's the 
people who sell the mine safety equipment to the people who run the 
mines and work in the mines. It's the people who haul the coal. It's 
the people who work for the train companies that haul the coal. And 
it's the cost of making goods in the United States of America, where 
those costs are going up and up and up compared to other parts of the 
world.
  In fact, there's an article just recently that says that Southeast 
Asia, even though natural gas is available to that Asian market, is 
choosing coal over and over again because per Btu, it's better for them 
to use coal. And a lot of times people talk about the low cost of 
natural gas in this country. I have to tell you, it's a great boon to 
us in many, many fields and lots of areas. But you have to remember, at 
$4 per million Btus created, coal and natural gas are equal. Anything 
above $4, coal is more efficient. It's cheaper to use. But guess what? 
This year we've been over $4. Right now, today, it's at $3.83. This 
year we've been over $4.

                              {time}  2000

  So what we're doing is we're passing these costs on. We're taking our 
jobs and we're shipping them overseas. And I know you all have heard 
this before, but Mr. Speaker, I want everybody in the country to know 
that we send these jobs overseas. They're making the goods that we used 
to make in this country; they're getting the money that we used to have 
in this country for our jobs, our employees. And according to a NASA 
study, it takes 10 days for the air from the middle of the Gobi 
Desert--that's in central China--to get to the Eastern Shore of my 
beloved Virginia. The air is coming back over here.
  So what we need to be doing is we need to be looking for things that 
resolve this issue of the pollutions and so forth on a global basis, 
and we don't need to be killing jobs in the United States of America 
while we look for those solutions. We need to make sure we're 
encouraging those jobs in the United States of America.
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. That was very well said. Wouldn't it be 
nice if we could just all have conversations like that all the time? I 
mean, look, there are people that really believe that coal is bad. I 
disagree, I disagree vehemently. They believe it. And I'm sure my 
friend from Virginia would love to debate them, and debate them 
respectfully. I remember hearing rhetoric about our party supporting 
black lungs and that rhetoric that's meant to fuel instability and 
anger and division. That's what's disappointing to me.
  Mr. Speaker, as I look to the President to lead this country, I want 
to look at a man who--of his past and who he is is a very dynamic 
person. He came from some very tough circumstances to become President 
of the United States. I wish he would say that, you know what, my job 
is to lead this conversation about jobs and the economy. My job is to 
lead this conversation. Look, we tried stimulus spending. I really 
thought it would work, but it didn't. Some Republicans, why don't you 
come to the White House. Why don't you have a conversation with me. I 
haven't been invited to the White House in years. Why don't you come to 
the White House, and let's have a conversation. Maybe we're not going 
to find any agreement, but at least we can respect each other's 
opinions and say what do we need to do to get this economy back on 
track. Why is it that over 7 percent of our neighbors don't have jobs? 
Many more than that are underemployed in jobs they don't want. Why is 
that? What can we do to come together?
  Mr. GARDNER. One of the things that I think the gentleman brings up 
in

[[Page 11996]]

tonight's conversation is he continues to talk about opportunity and 
what we stand for and what we've been able to do for jobs. I know that 
the gentlelady from Alabama is leading, if you're interested in 
engaging in this conversation around the country, wherever you are over 
the next days, weeks, months, as we talk about the economy, and beyond 
then, sending a tweet with the #4jobs in terms of engaging in this 
conversation. But you talked about what we can do. What we can do right 
now--and the gentleman from Virginia knows very well--it is energy.
  We've talked to people about a manufacturing renaissance in this 
country. There are articles in the paper about businesses that were 
located in Germany that are looking to relocate into the United States. 
A company we talked to said the cost of energy in India is four times 
what they were paying here.
  Traveling to my district, the Niobrara Formation, Eastern Plains, 
Western Slope, the energy that we can create there that's allowing this 
to happen. Whether it's coal, whether it's natural gas, whether it's 
renewable energy in my district, we have incredible opportunities to 
create these kinds of jobs that we know will put food on people's 
plates around the table, that will actually allow people to go on 
vacation, to afford to put gas in the car, to find a better way for 
their families.
  So these are the kinds of jobs with this revolution that we can 
continue to foster, but we have to have a President that doesn't just 
pivot to jobs once in a while, but is committed to a long-term, healthy 
economy that gets the regulatory mess out of the way, that provides 
certainty.
  I talked to a restaurant owner in my district. He owns three 
different bagel shops. He's actually going to have to sell one of them. 
He's worried because he doesn't know how he's going to be able to 
comply with the new health care plan. That's not the kind of certainty 
that we're looking for.
  So don't stop what's going good in this country--the manufacturing 
renaissance, energy development, opportunity--and let's fix what's not 
going great; let's fix what's going wrong in this country.
  Mrs. ROBY. I wanted to share a few numbers with you.
  Since the President took office in January 2009, the U-6 unemployment 
rate has remained stuck at 14 percent. That's workers that are stuck in 
part-time jobs, or they just have dropped out of the workforce 
altogether. During that same time we've watched, as I mentioned 
earlier, the national debt go from $9.8 trillion to $16.9 trillion; and 
according to Gallup, 17.3 percent of Americans consider themselves 
underemployed, which goes to your point.
  The President also promised 1 million new manufacturing jobs by the 
end of 2016, but factory employment has continued to fall in 2013, 
where 4.3 million Americans have been out of work for 6 weeks or more. 
The point is that we started this hour talking about The Washington 
Post article where the President came out and said that he is going to 
pivot back to jobs and the economy; and to the gentleman from 
Colorado's point, he should have never left the issue of jobs and the 
economy.
  Here in the House, our majority has been working tirelessly, as the 
gentleman from Illinois said, to bring the other side and say look, we 
have these commonsense solutions. This is about my kids and yours. This 
is about the future of this country. And we have an opportunity as 
leaders here in Washington representing all of the people that we do 
back home--and a responsibility at that--to do all that we can to get 
the Federal Government out of the way so that people like your 
constituent back home in Colorado with the bagel stores can open 
another bagel store instead of having to worry about closing.
  Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. Let me just add really briefly to that.
  You talk about our ideas and the fact that, you know, look, the 
President can--the REINS Act, for instance, that makes sense, some of 
those things.
  I make a promise here today: if the President comes to the 
Republicans and says, give me some ideas, and we give him ideas and he 
takes them, I will not go out and say that is a victory for 
Republicans.
  So let's get the partisanship out of this and say it's time to not be 
Republicans or Democrats about this; it's time to be Americans. Look, 
Mr. Speaker, I would say that the President has made, in his mind, a 
valiant attempt to save the economy. Unfortunately, I hate to say it, 
it hasn't worked. So come to us. Let us give you some ideas. And if you 
adopt our ideas, I--I personally--promise that I will not go out and 
say that the Republican Party just rolled the President, or we just 
rolled the Democrats, or anything like that. I will say America just 
won because we've worked together to get some big things done.
  Mr. GARDNER. That's exactly, at this time, what this country needs. 
I'm working, in a bipartisan fashion, with a Democrat from Vermont, 
Peter Welch, on an energy-efficiency measure. The President has also 
talked about this kind of approach, using performance contracts to 
create jobs, lower the amount of energy consumed by the United States 
Government--the largest economy consumer in the country. But we do it 
without government mandates; we do it without government subsidies. But 
we're doing something that's going to create private sector jobs, save 
the taxpayer dollars, and use less energy at the Federal level. The 
President's doing this. We're doing this here.
  These are the kinds of opportunities we have to work together that 
are creating jobs, And they're not to bow down or to kowtow to a 
certain element of an agenda. It's actually to move the country forward 
by doing the right thing.
  Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. I believe if we use our energy sources--
which I believe can be a bipartisan issue and it is in my part of the 
world in central Appalachia--but if we use our energy resources, I am 
convinced that the United States of America can remain the number one 
economic Nation in the world well into the next century--recognizing 
we've just started this one--well into the next century. But we have to 
make sure that Washington doesn't get in the way and completely stop 
that economic engine.
  Mrs. ROBY. Well, I just want to thank all of my colleagues, Mr. 
Speaker, for joining us to talk about these important issues.
  As we will hear from the President in his next three speeches about 
pivoting back to jobs and the economy, we here in the House remain 
focused on jobs and the economy for all Americans families. But we are 
also remaining focused on an all-of-the-above energy approach; 
repealing ObamaCare so that I can make those decisions with my doctor 
about what's best for me; a fairer, simpler Tax Code that we know will 
help all Americans. We've got to ease burdens and regulations so that 
businesses can create more jobs instead of having to worry about the 
ones that they're going to lose.
  This is about making life work for Americans. This is about easing 
the pain that so many Americans are feeling because of this bloated 
government that refuses to, first and foremost, admit that we have a 
spending problem.
  This is about refocusing our efforts here in the House and making 
sure that we are remembering the people that sent us here, the families 
that we've talked about tonight that we want to ensure that government 
is not hurting, but government is getting out of the way so that they 
can thrive in these United States of America.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________