Steve Austria

Mr. AUSTRIA

Mr. AUSTRIA. I thank the gentleman, and I look forward to continuing to work with him on this very important issue.

Mr. AUSTRIA

Mr. AUSTRIA. I thank the ranking member for yielding. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I want to thank Chairman Thompson, Ranking Member King, as well as the subcommittee that worked on this, for working in a bipartisan manner. All of our lives changed after 9/11. This committee plays a very important role in ensuring the safety of all Americans. As a new Member of Congress and as a new member of the Homeland Security Committee, it is good to see this committee work in a bipartisan manner as we push good legislation forward that I support. Let me just say that, as a member of that subcommittee who heard this bill, we had an opportunity to talk to and to listen to industry groups, to business coalitions, to union representatives, and to subject matter experts. However, it seems to me that we would have had a better opportunity to create an even better bill had we had an opportunity to wait for the administrator of TSA to be appointed and to understand what policies that new administrator was going to put in place. We then would have been able to work around those policies. With that being said, the other side of the aisle decided it was important to move this legislation forward. I think we've got a good bill before us that does some good things. It will help ensure that the screening processes that are being used for passengers are working. It will help us to address other vulnerabilities in our transportation system, such as underwater tunnels and open rail lines. It will prohibit the outsourcing of terrorist watch lists--No Fly Lists, selectee lists, verifications--to other nongovernmental entities or to private companies. I think those are good things. I also think there were some good amendments that were offered in this committee that could have strengthened this bill, and we're going to hear about some of those amendments as we proceed.

Mr. AUSTRIA. Just to close, I think we have an opportunity to strengthen this bill, and I would hope that we will continue to work together in a bipartisan manner with this committee to strengthen this bill.

Mr. AUSTRIA

Mr. AUSTRIA. I thank the gentleman for yielding. And I want to thank the gentlewoman from Oklahoma for putting things in perspective. I think you did a very good job of laying things out. It certainly applies to Ohio. And to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta), thank you for your work in Ohio. I have had an opportunity to serve with you for 10 years in the State legislature. Together we worked on some good things to move our State forward, comprehensive tax reform that lowered income taxes for families and small businesses. We helped to make Ohio more business friendly, especially in the manufacturing industry, by phasing out tangible personal property tax and corporate franchise tax. When we look at the proposals before Congress today, this cap-and- trade proposal, on the surface, it sounds harmless. But it isn't. It is not, for the reasons that the gentlelady from Oklahoma just talked about. It hurts Ohioans as far as jobs, as far as businesses, and it is not a good thing. This proposal is going to increase the price of the cost of energy and the price for anyone who turns on a TV or fills up their gas tank or turns on the heat in the winter. Their cost of energy is going to go up. The Congressional Budget Office, in the initial proposal that was brought forth by this administration, estimated that the cost of energy in the average household will go up approximately $1,600 per year. We have seen figures as high as $3,000 per year by MIT and other credible organizations that are following this very closely. So the cost of energy is going to go up on not just Ohioans, but all Americans. And I think at a time when we are struggling economically, we are going through an economic crisis, it is not the time to be raising the cost of energy on families and small businesses like we are going to be doing with cap-and-trade if this moves forward. Let me also point out the fact in our State, in Ohio, as in many other States, in Ohio, manufacturing and agriculture are the two top industries in our State and will get hit the hardest with cap-and- trade. As was just mentioned by the previous speaker, manufacturing jobs will be at stake. American companies will be less competitive internationally against other countries that will not be playing by the same rules, that will not have the same regulations on them like China and India, and will put them at a disadvantage from a competitive standpoint. That in turn is going to cost jobs. Ohio, again, as in many of the other Midwest States across our country that are heavily into manufacturing, is going to get hit the hardest by this. And this is not a good thing for that industry, as well as the agriculture industry, as was just mentioned, which relies heavily on fuels for tractors, for transporting crops and going to the store and so forth. So it is going to increase the costs of energy as well as hurting those who are trying to do business in the State of Ohio as well as job loss. I also want to point out one other factor for our State, which I know is very diversified from State to State, on the chart that you put up previously. In the State of Ohio, 87 percent of our fuel, of our energy comes from coal. And coal will be hit directly by the cap-and-trade. It is going to put mandates on undeveloped technologies for coal-fired plants. In some cases, coal-fired plants may not even be able to comply with this, and they may have to close down. And that too could cost jobs in the State of Ohio. So when you look at the cap-and-trade and the way this is put together, it should be called a ``cap-and-tax'' as many of the other Members had mentioned because, Mr. Speaker, I think clearly this is a cost that is being passed on to every American. And Republicans, as was mentioned, do have an alternative. I think we all want to see cleaner energy. We all want to see more efficient energy. But we do have an alternative plan that is out there that will have less reliance on foreign oil, that would look at the resources that we have available in this country, that would help us produce and make us more energy independent, give us more energy independence with increased exploration and development of new and renewable energy sources, to help promote alternative forms of energy like solar, like wind and other alternative sources of energy that are out there. So we do have an alternative way to get to where we want to go. Again, I think the cap-and-trade doesn't make sense for Ohio, and it is going to cost jobs. It is going to put an increase in the cost of energy for all Americans. And I think we can do a better job and have a better alternative out there that we should be pursuing. And I thank the gentleman from Ohio for yielding.

Mr. AUSTRIA

Mr. AUSTRIA. Madam Chairman, I'd like to thank the ranking member from Wisconsin for yielding. And as we just heard from the ranking member, this budget will increase the size, scope and cost of the Federal Government by historic amounts. And when I fly home on weekends to my three sons--I also have three sons--it is difficult for me to go back home knowing the amount of debt, historic amounts of debt that I am putting on my children, our children and our grandchildren, that will be paid for for years to come. And now to chase some of the spending, what this budget does, it now includes nearly $1.5 trillion in new taxes, a tax hike over the next decade that's going to further weaken America's prospects for sustained economic growth and job creation well into the future. And it's no surprise that the bulk of these tax hikes are allegedly to hit those nameless, faceless wealthy Americans, so to speak. But, in fact, those people, those individuals that we're talking about, many of those are small business owners and investors, the same small business owners and investors who create 60 to 80 percent of the jobs in this country, and who are precisely the people whose enterprise is needed to restore the economy. This budget includes a cap-and-trade proposal that sounds harmless, but, in fact, it is very harmful. It's a $629 billion tax increase on who? On hardworking families, families that are struggling to make it from paycheck to paycheck. If you use natural gas, if you turn on the light switch and use electricity, you heat your home, you fill up your gas tank with gasoline, anything you use with carbon, we're now going to raise the cost of energy on you. We're going to raise, in this bill, the cost of energy for the average American family by about $1,600 per year. And I have seen reports that are two, three times that amount. And this tax will further erode the job growth of the U.S. manufacturing sector. And I am from a State in the Midwest, Ohio, where we have a lot of manufacturing. And I fear that we're putting American companies at an even greater competitive disadvantage with China and other countries. When we take a step back, we may ask ourselves, why would the President and the Democrat leadership want to raise taxes on small businesses and families during a recession? Well, Madam Chairman, we just, we heard earlier, it's because of all the spending that we heard about earlier from our ranking member, that they need these tax hikes to give the illusion that they're not increasing the deficit and debt as much as they really are. The problem is, there's no spending restraints in this bill. And that illusion is only going to be able to last so long because, even with the massive tax increases in this bill, this budget spending growth is so explosive that it outpaces revenue for the entire budget period. So it's clear the tax hikes that we're looking at today, I think, are just for starters. I mean, even the New York Times recently warned that, in fact, the President will inevitably have to raise taxes.

Mr. AUSTRIA. Let me just point out, because we are going to hear more about this. I want to make one key point, and that is that this budget relies on the flawed notion that the Federal Government can spend all it wants for as long as it wants and just borrow from other countries and tax our own citizens. And for what? Just to keep this good deal of spending going? We can do better. Americans expect better, and we need to fix this problem. It's a concern short-term and long-term.

Mr. AUSTRIA

Mr. AUSTRIA. I thank the gentleman from Utah. I thank you for the great work you are doing for the State of Utah and our country as a freshman. Thank you for putting this on today. I want to thank my other colleague from California. Thank you for your service to our country. Thank you for putting things in perspective for our military. And I want to add one thing. We had an opportunity to change some of this budget, and another freshman--it seems like the freshmen now are taking the lead role on some of this stuff, which is good--Congressman Harper from Mississippi and myself cosponsored an amendment in the budget that would put the troops' increase, their pay increase where it should be at 3.4 percent where it has been lowered and marked down in this budget to 2.9, which is the minimal amount required by statute. When we have troops that are now fighting in two wars, we're increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan--I have had an opportunity, I represent the largest single site employer in the State of Ohio Wright Patterson Air Force Base. I have four military facilities in my district. I have had an opportunity to attend a number of deployments for men and women in the military. And I have to say, they are the greatest people I have had an opportunity to meet, and I would go so far as to say it's the next greatest generation that's serving our country today. And when these--we're asking these men and women to serve and the deployments are lengthier than what was expected, more often than what was expected. There are tremendous sacrifices that are being made by their families, by our troops. I think that the least we can do in this budget is not cut what was expected as far as their pay but give them the increase that they deserve, and in my opinion earned. They are doing a spectacular job in protecting us, and we thank them for their sacrifices to protect our freedom. But unfortunately, that amendment was shot down and was voted down in Budget by the other side of the aisle. And so we had an opportunity to try to fix some of that, and we didn't do that in the Budget Committee, and I hope that we can get our priorities straight on that. Let me build off of my colleague from Utah. Let me talk about Ohio because you two are out west and some of the things that you talked about--the difficult times that small businesses are going through, families are going through out west--we are experiencing these things in the midwest. I represent the State of Ohio, the heart of the midwest. And I can tell you we have over 900,000 small businesses in the State of Ohio. And within the last few weeks, in particular, our phones in the district offices have been ringing. Business have been calling us, families have been calling us. They are going through very difficult times right now. They are making sacrifices for our country. Small businesses are calling us, and they are having difficulty getting the financing, the credit that they need to be able to meet their payroll, to be able to save the jobs that are out there, much less create new jobs and sustain those jobs in the long term. The Bob Johnsons that you just talked about. We have a lot of Bob Johnsons, those types of businesses in Ohio, and they are the economic engine of our State and this country. As you mentioned, they create 60 to 80 percent of the jobs across this country. And I think here in Congress we can do better. As freshmen, we've been in Congress now for less than 100 days, and we have been faced with a $700 billion TARP financial market bailout that has not worked, in my opinion. It has been a disaster because there's been no--there hasn't been the accountability needed, there hasn't been the transparency as to how that money has been in place. There is no plan in place. The Treasury Department did not have a plan in place. We had Secretary Geithner come into the Budget Committee, and we asked him about the financial bailout, the market bailout. And he could not give us specific answers as to how the money that has been spent has been spent and how their plans on the future dollars on how they were going to be spent. And then we had the stimulus package, $791 billion spending package, I call it, $1.1 trillion over the next 10 years of taxpayers' dollars. In that stimulus package was a paragraph in there on a bill that not one Member of Congress had an opportunity to read completely before we voted on that, said, You know what? We can now take your tax dollars, we can use it as a bailout, give it to a company like AIG, and they can pay out $165 million in bonuses, 73 of those being over $1-million bonuses. One lucky guy got a $1.64 million bonus, and twelve of them don't even work for the company. These are hardworking American taxpayers' dollars that are paying out these bonuses. As the public begins to understand what is happening here in D.C., they are outraged. They are outraged by this stuff, and it shouldn't be happening. We can do better than that. Now we have a $3.9 trillion budget before us. And guess what is in this budget? We're now going to tell you how we're going to pay for the historical amount of debt that we just built up. We're going to start taxing the American people. In this bill, there is nearly a $2 trillion tax hike over the next decade: $2 trillion of taxes. That's going to further weaken America's prospects with sustained economic growth and job creation well into the future. And let me tell you who's going to be paying for this. It is going to be many of our small business owners that are struggling to make paycheck to paycheck, that are struggling to not just save jobs but create jobs and be able to sustain those jobs. Now they know they have a tax increase coming at them. I mean, is that how we're going to expand and create new jobs? American families, 95 to 100 percent of the American families across this country, we're now going to hit you with higher costs on energy, taxes. This little thing that's stuck in the budget--and I appreciate your chart up there because I think it helps put things in perspective as to how we're paying for this debt. We're going to stick this proposal in there that's cap-and-trade. It sounds harmless. It is not harmless. We're talking about $629 billion of tax increases on families, families that are making sacrifices right now that are struggling to make it paycheck to paycheck. Anyone who uses natural gas, who turns on your light switch, who uses electricity, heats their home, fills up their gasoline tank, you know what we're going to do now in this budget we're going to raise the cost of energy on you for the average American family of about $1,600 per household. So everybody's electricity rates--anybody that uses any type of CO2 or carbon, your energy costs are now going up. And then this tax is also--this is what worries me in Ohio because we have a lot of manufacturing in Ohio. It's the number one industry with agriculture. It's going to further erode the job growth in the U.S. manufacturing sector. It's going to put American companies at an even greater competitive disadvantage with China and other companies--or other countries. I apologize. It's late tonight. And this is what is supposed to be turning our economy around creating jobs, this cap-and-trade proposal, which should be called a cap-and-tax proposal. We can do better. We should be doing better. And let me tell you, the reality is that all of this infusion of spending in government and expanding government, the reality is we are serving our constituents in our district, and we have constituents that are out there that are asking for our help right now. They don't know where to go. This is not good for them. They can't get the financing, they can't get the credit to help save and create new jobs. And we can do better. We should be targeted on our small businesses, on those families that are struggling. And I know both in your States, Utah and California, and across this country, they are going through the same thing. So I thank the gentleman for yielding. I will yield back. I know you've been wanting to jump in on this.

Mr. AUSTRIA. If the gentleman would yield for just a moment, because I think what these tax hikes are doing, they're giving the illusion that they're not really increasing the deficit or the debt as much as they really are. And the fact is, without any spending restraints--and you have got your chart up there--that this illusion is only going to last so long, because even with all these tax increases, the budget's spending growth is so explosive that it outpaces the revenue for the entire budget. I mean, the entire budget period, you know, the spending outpaces the revenue that even these huge tax hikes can bring in. And I think it's a feel-good thing. I think it's one of those where the Federal Government right now thinks that they can just spend all they want for as long as they want, just continue to borrow, and now they're going to start taxing families and all so that they can keep this feel-good spending going on. And I think the Americans, as they begin to realize what's going on here in D.C., are becoming more and more outraged, and businesses are already very concerned on how they're going to be able to continue to survive. I thank you for yielding.

Mr. AUSTRIA. Let me tell you, it has been an honor tonight to stand up here with my colleagues, all of us being new Members here. Congressman Chaffetz from Utah, you are doing an outstanding job in representing your great State; to have a Member who's served in our military, and we thank you for your service, Congressman Duncan from California; two of my outstanding colleagues that I have had the honor to come in with in this class. There's 22, I think, Republicans, and 34 Democrats, if I'm not mistaken. Just outstanding talent. And to join the two of you. I also have a family at home. I have three sons. When I came to Congress, I came to Congress because I thought I could make a positive change. I thought we had opportunities to change the direction this country was going and to really move in the right direction to help our small businesses, to help strengthen our economy, to help those families that were out there that are suffering right now going through difficult times. Let me tell you, I did not come up here to run up the deficit, to create historic amounts of debt for my three sons at home, for our children and our grandchildren that will have to pay for this in years to come. We have a budget that we will be debating this week and voting on this week that's now going to, all of a sudden, start taxing. This is how we are going to all of a sudden start paying down some of this debt and start taxes American families, as we have talked about tonight, by hitting them at home where it hurts most, we know, with heating their homes, filling their cars with gasoline, and electricity, as we mentioned multiple times. It's not the way to go. I think we can do better. I think the American people expected better last November. They expected us to work in a bipartisan manner to move good public policy forward. Quite frankly, I haven't seen that in my first 100 days. What I've seen is business as usual here in Washington, D.C. It's been partisan politics, it has been legislation decided by a small group on one side of the aisle only that has been pushing this stuff through. I think the American people know, as they are beginning to realize what is going on--and many of them have gotten their quarterly statements. Their retirement accounts are down significantly. Their children's education funds are down significantly. Their savings accounts are down significantly. It's starting to sink in what is really happening here. The concern is tremendous. We have a responsibility to be accountable for those hardworking Americans tax dollars. That's our responsibility in Congress, is to ensure that there's accountability, there's transparency, and that we do have a plan to turn this country around. So, again, I thank my two colleagues for allowing me to join them tonight. Every day I walk into my office, I take off my coat, roll up my sleeves. I've got a wonderful intern by the name of Louis who comes in and says, Congressman, what fight do we have today? I can tell you, we're not going to give up that fight. We're going to keep fighting and fighting for the hardworking Americans out there and hardworking taxpayers out there and being accountable for their tax dollars. Thank you for yielding.

Mr. AUSTRIA

Mr. AUSTRIA. I thank the gentlelady from Minnesota. We are well represented here today here in Ohio in this Chamber. There is a lot going on in Ohio, and this budget directly affects us, and I appreciate the opportunity to be able to speak today. Let me just say, as a new Member of this Congress and having served less than 100 days, we have been faced with tremendous challenges and issues before us. I will start out with the second half of the bailout of the financial markets, the TARP bill, which was $700 billion that I felt did not have enough accountability and not enough transparency. The Treasury did not have a specific plan in place when we voted on that bill, and I had deep concerns with that, and I voted against that bill. The second bill I was asked to vote on was the $791 billion over 10 years, $1.1 trillion stimulus bill that had a tremendous amount of government spending that I felt was not targeted toward where it should be, to small businesses, which are the economic engine of this country. Seventy percent of the businesses across this country are small businesses. We have 900,000 small businesses in the State of Ohio. Yet this plan did not focus on small businesses. It did little to nothing to help small businesses. It was focused on increasing government spending, which I felt was wrong. We just heard the leader talk about what happens when you don't read a bill, when you don't have accountability, when you don't have transparency, when you don't have a plan. When you don't read a bill, all of a sudden, you run into what we ran into last week with AIG bonuses being paid out of hardworking taxpayers' dollars. Then there was a $410 billion omnibus appropriations spending bill that had an 8 percent increase, or a $32 billion increase, this year when we are asking Americans to tighten their belts and small businesses to make sacrifices. There are almost 9,000 earmarks in it. Now we are being faced with a $3.6 trillion budget. I think the gentlelady has pointed out very well and right on target that the problem with this budget right now is that it contains too much spending, too much borrowing, which we have already seen in these other bills, but in addition, we are now talking about $1.4 trillion of new taxes that are going to be put on Americans across this country. There is a cap-and-trade, or what is being referred to as a cap-and- tax, on anything that uses carbon or CO2. We are going back and are going to raise the estate tax. There is the raising of the capital gains tax, the removing of itemized deductions, the increasing of marginal rates. All of these tax increases concern me in this budget. Let me tell you, as a former small business owner and as a father of three, I did not come to Congress to begin major spending, running up a deficit, running up debt like we are running up, passing on debt to my three children at home. That is not why I came to Congress. I came to Congress to turn this economy around and to really begin to save jobs, to create new jobs and to be able to sustain those jobs over the long term. I believe it is our small businesses that can do this. I can tell you, as a small business owner, when I look at this budget that we are faced with, I have deep concerns about what is facing me--new taxes, taxes and taxes. I talked about the cap-and-trade--we have heard that, too--the increase of taxes on those who have incomes of over $250,000 or more, on the so-called ``wealthiest'' Americans of the country. Many of those are small business owners. Over half of those are small business owners in this country. If I am a small business owner and I know I have these taxes coming at me in 2011, I doubt if I am going to be looking at investing in my business and in expanding my business and in taking a risk. I am going to be preparing for that new tax increase that is coming right at me, and I don't believe that is good for our economy. I don't believe that helps our small businesses. Again, in Ohio, we have over 9,000 small businesses. Seven out of ten of all new jobs are created by small businesses. America's small businesses are the world's second largest economy, trailing only to the United States as a whole according to NFIB. According to a Zogby poll released last week, nearly two-thirds of Americans, 63 percent of Americans, said that it is small businesses and entrepreneurs that are going to lead this country, lead the U.S., to a better future. Well, you know, while we look at what is going on within this budget, it does not make sense what we are doing. I had an opportunity on Monday to meet with many of our business folks at a luncheon that was sponsored by the U.S. Chamber. We had the rotary there, and we had the local chambers there. I had a chance to talk with some of our small businesses about this budget and what we are facing, and they had deep concerns. I mean they are struggling right now. Americans are struggling right now. They are making sacrifices. Businesses are struggling to make it from paycheck to paycheck, payroll to payroll. They cannot get financing. They cannot get the credit necessary to keep their businesses moving forward. What are we going to do? We are going to go out and propose a budget that is going to increase spending, increase borrowing, run our debt up to $3.9 trillion on the conservative side, and increase taxes by $1.4 trillion on all Americans. I believe it is the wrong way to go. I think we can do better. I think the American people expect better and deserve better, and we can produce a better bill than what we have before us. I thank the gentlelady. I yield back my time, and I thank her for the opportunity to speak today.

Mr. AUSTRIA

Mr. AUSTRIA. I thank the gentleman from Ohio for yielding, I think next to the leader, our senior Member from Ohio. I thank you for yielding. And it is an important issue. Being a new Member of Congress, having served less than 100 days in Congress, to be faced with what we are facing right now, the amount of spending, the amount of borrowing, the amount of debt that is accumulating. I didn't come to Congress--I have three sons at home--to pass this type of debt on to our children. But specifically talking about the bailout, talking about AIG and what has happened, one of the first bills that I was asked to vote on was the second half of the TARP, the financial market bailout, the $700 billion bailout, something that I felt when I was running for office looking from the outside in was a bad idea, for government to get involved, to not have accountability, not have transparency, and not have a plan; have, as the gentleman from Ohio described, a plan that was brokered behind closed doors by a small group of individuals. As a Member of Congress, I have to tell you that my views haven't changed. On that particular bill, when we voted on that bill I could not find answers on how the $350 billion, the first half of the $700 billion bailout, how that money was spent, could not find as far as any type of specific plan from the Department of the Treasury on how they were going to turn around the financial markets. There was no accountability, and I had a real problem with that with the TARP bill. Now, as the gentleman from Ohio talked about with the stimulus bill, language that was inserted in a bill, and which Leader Boehner stood on this floor and held up 1,100 pages, approximately, that not one Member had the opportunity to read before we voted on, to me, that is a terrible reason to be passing a bill. We should have had an opportunity to read that bill and understand what was in it before we voted on it. But when you have no accountability, when you have no transparency, when you have no specific plan on how you are going to use that money to turn the financial markets around, when you have no opportunity to read the stimulus or spending bill, what that equals is disaster. And that is what we saw last week. We saw outrage. We saw the American people beginning to understand for the first time what was happening here in D.C. when 160-some million dollars of bonuses were paid out to executives and employees, of their hard-earned money, $170 billion of their hard-earned taxpayer money that was used to bail out the same company. I do believe we had some opportunities to do better. In an effort to try to resolve this situation, one of the things that I did was stand up with 14 members of our freshman class and introduce a bill to try to get that money back; doing in a different way, rather than raising taxes at 90 percent, getting 100 percent of that money back, asking the Department of the Treasury to use every resource they had available to get that money back within 2 weeks; to ensure that any future contracts, that the Department of the Treasury would sign off on those contracts and know what we are using that bailout money for. After all, the government now owns, I believe it is, 80 percent of AIG. Unfortunately, we haven't had any hearings on that bill, and it doesn't appear as though it is going to move. The opposite side decided they were going to come up with a different solution with a 90 percent tax, to try to move that forward. But what is happening here, and I know many people are getting their quarterly statements, their financial statements, they are beginning to see their accounts, their 401(k) and retirement accounts, their children's education funds, their savings accounts. They are down significantly. We have had calls into our office where people have lost 40 percent, 50 percent of their money, and they are very concerned as to what is happening with the financial market bailouts. And I think we have an opportunity and we have an obligation to turn things around, to ensure that the taxpayers' dollars, the $700 billion that passed this body and is being used to bail out the financial markets, that there is accountability on the how that money is being spent, that there is transparency, so we know exactly what is happening, that there is a plan in place so that we can better understand. What we are finding out is that some of the dollars that have been spent were bad investments. I am looking at testimony from Elizabeth Warren from the Congressional Oversight Panel to the Senate Banking Committee, that talks about how the Treasury invested about $254 billion in assets that were worth only approximately $176 billion, a shortfall of $78 billion. We can do better than that. When you talk about the $165 million bonuses that were paid out to these employees--and I am looking at a news article, this is from the New York Post last week, ``Fully, 73 executives got $1 million or more each, of whom 22 were paid at least $2 million, while seven got $4 million, and one lucky duck pocketed a cool $6.4 million.'' We can do better than that. The American people expect us to do better than that and deserve better than that. But what all this is doing is creating uncertainty in the market when you don't have a plan and there is no accountability for these dollars. In my prior life before being a State legislator for 10 years and coming to Congress, I was a small business owner, I was a financial advisor. And one thing I can tell you that is certain is that our financial markets, our businesses, they don't like uncertainty. And we are seeing big fluctuations in the market right now, we are seeing a lot of downturn in the market right now I think because of that uncertainty. I think because of public pressure, the American people stepping forward and saying enough is enough and being outraged about this, that we are finally starting to see a plan brought forward that we hope will help resolve some of this problem that has transpired as a result of this legislation. I will yield back my time to the gentleman from Ohio. I thank you for the opportunity to speak on this, and thank you for bringing this issue forward. It is very important.

Mr. AUSTRIA. And I appreciate you pointing this out, because while all this is happening, the three of us represent the State of Ohio, there are real families out there that are hurting right now that we are asking to make sacrifices. There are over 900,000 businesses in the State of Ohio, and small businesses that make up 70 percent of our workforce out there across this country that are struggling to make payroll, they can't get financing. They can't get debt. And instead of dealing directly with their problem, I mean, you laid out what has been happening here in Congress. But in addition to that, we passed the $700 billion TARP bailout with no accountability, in my opinion, not enough transparency. There was no specific plan by the Department of the Treasury. Then we passed the stimulus bill which contains the language that allows the bonuses to be paid out that you pointed out earlier; not an opportunity for any Member of this Congress to read that bill before we vote on it and pass it. And then, you know, our constituents back home, hardworking Americans across this country are getting their quarterly statements and they are seeing their account values down. They are struggling to make it right now. And they turn on the television and they see that these executives from AIG are getting $100 million of bonuses of the $170 billion bailout that we gave to them of hard working taxpayers' dollar. These are the same officials that, you know, and were probably involved in a lot of these risky investments that brought AIG down to begin with. And so what does the House do? We then rush a bill through to try to regain some of that money for our mistakes by trying to pass a 90 percent tax on this money to try to get it back, 90 percent of it back. And I am reading from The Hill today, seeing where the headline on the front page here is ``House Bonus Bill Is Buried By the Senate.'' That despite the public outcry, despite the reaction that the House had in trying to get that money back, which I don't think we ever should have been in that position to begin with, that bill appears to be not moving in the Senate right now. I yield back.

Mr. AUSTRIA. Point of clarification. I assume the pen has been eliminated, right?

Mr. AUSTRIA. Well, somebody had to put that in there and write it in there. Somebody had to use the pen. But no, I appreciate the point that the gentleman from Columbus made. Or is Columbus correct?

Mr. AUSTRIA. I wanted to make sure I got that right for Central Ohio. But I think that is a very important point. When the government owns 80 percent of a company and not knowing what is going on and we can't get an answer as to who put this language in. I mean, I appreciate the gentleman from Ohio with this game of Clue because I think that it is as good as any other methodology that I know of trying to figure out who is responsible for putting that language in because we are not getting the clear answers. We are not getting a specific answer to that question.

Mr. AUSTRIA. If you would yield for just a moment.

Mr. AUSTRIA. Let me just say, as a new Member up here from Ohio--I mean I served 10 years in the State legislature. I've been here less than 100 days. I'm just starting my third month. I have never seen this kind of process where bills are rolled out, where language is stuck in that we don't have the opportunity to read before we vote on it, and where language is put in and no one will take responsibility for that language. I think the American people out there are looking at this, scratching their heads, saying: How can this be? How can it be that language is put in a bill, and nobody has an opportunity to read that bill, and nobody wants to take responsibility now for that language? I appreciate the exercise that the gentleman from Ohio has gone through tonight to make the point, and I appreciate your offering that resolution. It shouldn't take 14 Republican freshmen to stand up and say, ``we want accountability for this dollar,'' and offer legislation that we would hope that the administration would stand behind, but it doesn't seem to be getting any traction. I hope your resolution moves tomorrow because, you know, the American people deserve answers. I think you've made some very good points tonight, and I appreciate the opportunity to participate with both gentlemen from Ohio.

Mr. AUSTRIA

Mr. AUSTRIA. Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Robert Hale, for his outstanding service to the community on the occasion of his retirement. On behalf of the people of Ohio's Seventh Congressional District, I am honored to congratulate Robert Hale on being recognized by the Filipino-American community, his business associates and employees, and his family upon his recent retirement. His dedicated service to the citizens of Dayton and the Filipino- American community is both admirable and commendable. Hale spent the last 25 years working at Dayton Mailing Service, Inc., a company he founded in 1984. He recently retired and his daughter has taken over daily operations of the company. Robert has been an avid supporter of the Philippine-American Society of Greater Dayton, the Association of Philippine Physicians of Greater Dayton, Filipino-American Ladies Organization of Dayton and the former Philippine Folk Arts Society. Hale is a member of the Optimist Club and joined the Peace Corps in 1962. He has been a driving force within the business and Filipino-American communities in the Dayton area and has earned the respect and admiration of all those with whom he has served and the gratitude of the people that have come to know him. The people of Ohio's Seventh Congressional District and I extend best wishes upon retirement and ongoing success in all endeavors.

Mr. AUSTRIA

Mr. AUSTRIA. I want to thank the Member from Missouri for yielding his time and helping to put things in perspective. Mr. Speaker, thank you. Just like Missouri, Mr. Speaker, as you know, there are families in Ohio that are real families that are struggling right now, that are going through difficult times. And the economy in Ohio is down, and we are struggling, going through difficult times. I want to focus in on the 900,000 small businesses that we have in Ohio that are going through these difficult times, that we are asking to make sacrifices, we are asking them to help save jobs, help create new jobs, and we need to make sure that we are taking the necessary action to help them get back on their feet and not hurt them.

Mr. AUSTRIA. Thank you for those comments, because I think that puts things in perspective. The 900,000 small businesses across the State of Ohio is reflective across this country. As you mentioned, 70 to 80 percent of our Nation's economy, the engine behind that economy is the small businesses. We should be working to help those small businesses, not hurting those small businesses, and helping them to be able to get through these difficult times and be able to save jobs, to be able to create new jobs, and to be able to sustain those jobs in the long term. We need to work hard. As I have traveled throughout my district, and I have a very unique district that runs from Dayton to Columbus, it's very diversified. You go to the western part of my district, you have Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which is the largest single-site employer in the State of Ohio, located in Greene County. You go towards the middle of the district in Clarke County, Springfield, a lot of manufacturing and industry. You go to the eastern part of my district, you have a lot of small towns, rural areas, a lot of agriculture, and a lot of small businesses. I think that is reflective of Ohio and across this country. But no matter where I go, and I have had an opportunity to travel, in my 20 months as a new Member of Congress throughout all eight counties of my district, and I have spoken at many different events--with Chambers, Rotaries, at other events. And I have talked to many of our small business owners who are going through difficult times right now. They are having a very difficult time right now just maintaining their businesses right now. I had two businesses actually came to Washington, D.C., this week to meet with their Congressman to express their concerns. And what I'm hearing is that they can't get the financing, they can't get the credit necessary to keep their doors open to be able to meet their payroll, to be able to expand and create new jobs and sustain those jobs in the long-run. They are worried about the uncertainty right now that we are seeing in our financial markets. As you brought up, I think anyone who's looked at their financial statements lately, whether it be your retirement savings, your kids' education savings, just your savings account, you have seen a significant drop in that. There's a lot of uncertainty as to what is happening in those financial markets right now. When they look at government, when they look at what is happening here in government right now, there's a lot of uncertainty as to what's happening and what direction we're going by infusing such large amounts of spending in government and on whether we are squeezing out the private sector and, in particular, small businesses. They are going through some very difficult times. During these times, we are asking families, we are asking small businesses to cut back, to make sacrifices, while government, on the other hand, seems to be doing the opposite. We should be doing the same thing. But, in my 60 days, nearly 60 days here in Congress, we have had some major spending bills. I spent 10 years in the State legislature before I came here, and I wasn't used to the B and the T words--the billions and trillions. It's becoming words that we are using regularly around here. The first bill that I was faced with was the second half of the $700 billion bailout bill for the financial markets, also known as TARP, something that we have seen that there's been lack of, in my opinion, accountability and a lack of enough transparency. There's been really no definite decisive plan by the Department of Treasury. And that uncertainty, we have seen that reflected in the markets. We have seen them fluctuating, mainly downward.

Mr. AUSTRIA. Thank you to my good friend from Missouri for putting things in perspective. I think you're exactly right and, having been a small business owner, when you're looking at that and you're faced in this new budget with higher taxes, when you're looking at an economy right now where the financial markets, you can't get finance, you can't get the credit that you need to be able to expand your business to continue on your business, I don't think this is good for small businesses across this country. And they are the backbone of our economy. This is on the heels, again, of the $700 billion TARP bill. This is on the heels of an approximately $709 billion stimulus or spending, or, as you call it, pork plan. I think when you look at the spending that is taking place in this budget, and it concerns me as to what we are doing. I, as a member of the Budget Committee, we have heard testimony. We have heard testimony from the key officials in the administration. And I continue to have concerns about the amount of debt that we are accumulating. Trillions of dollars. This is debt that--how are we going to pay for this? We are now starting to see that come out in this budget, with higher taxes, as you mentioned, which is not a good thing, especially in a downturn of an economy. That is not going to help, again, businesses to create jobs. When we see the borrowing and the spending and the amount of debt that is being accumulated, and I have three children at home. When I came to Congress, I didn't come to Congress to be passing on to them trillions of dollars of debt; debt that is being passed on to my children, our grandchildren, that they will be paying for in years to come.

Mr. AUSTRIA. Thank you. Also, I think it is important to point out that we did have an alternative plan as we went through that stimulus plan that would have created twice as many jobs for half the cost. That is using the same standards as the President's own economic adviser. Using those same standards, we could have created, again, twice as many jobs for half the cost. The other thing is the spending plan, and we are looking very closely at this budget in committee. There are some good things, I will acknowledge. The fact that this budget acknowledges that we have an entitlement crisis going on right now I think is a good thing. The budget attempts to fix the AMT, which I think is a good thing. It sets a means test for Medicare part D premiums, which I think is a good thing. But then you get into this spending that we are talking about, and we are talking about increases from the 2009 budget, the spending of $3.9 trillion. Again, this is debt that we are accumulating that we are going to be passing on that our children and grandchildren will be paying for years to come. We look at the increases on the nondefense appropriations by 9.3 percent, we look at the baseline that they are using as far as the war funding. Those are things that concern me in this budget. And what I want to talk about that I think is really going to hurt this economy is the higher taxes that are within this budget. That is going to hurt the economic growth and job creation, and these levees are totaling approximately $1.4 trillion over the next 10 years, allegedly targeting the wealthiest Americans. And let's define wealthiest. I would be glad to yield back the time, because I know we both know that many of those individuals that are falling in that category are small business owners that are going to be having to pay this tax. Again, these are the same business owners that we are asking to step up to the plate, to help create jobs, to help save jobs, to give of their own assets and invest it back in their business during uncertain times. At the same time, the government is going to come in and say, by the way, you need to pay us. We are going to raise your taxes during that time period. And as you mentioned earlier, these small businesses create anywhere from 60 percent to 80 percent of jobs in the United States.

Mr. AUSTRIA. I want to thank the Congressman for bringing that up. It is very important that taxpayers understand that their hardworking taxpayer dollars are paying $75 billion for that program that is going to reward those who are making irresponsible and bad decisions, and the ones that are paying are the ones that were responsible. And I talk to small business owners and families who are struggling. And they are altering their lifestyle in order to make their mortgage payments on time, in a timely manner. And unfortunately, they are the ones that are paying for the circumstances like Congresswoman Foxx talked about as far as mortgages up to $750,000 for bad decisions. A couple of facts on small businesses. I think it is very important that we not lose focus as to really who is hurting in this process right now and whom we should be focusing and targeting our economic stimulus towards. Small businesses create seven out of 10 new jobs across this country according to the SBA. The NFIB says America's small businesses are the world's second largest economy, trailing only the United States as a whole. According to the Zogby poll released last week, nearly two-thirds of Americans, 63 percent, said that small businesses, entrepreneurs, are the ones who are going to lead the U.S. to a better future.

Mr. AUSTRIA. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. AUSTRIA. I thank the good doctor from Tennessee for putting things in perspective. There are real families out there across this country, including in my State of Ohio, who are going through difficult times right now and who are suffering. I want to make sure that the general public out there, the American people, understand really what this cap-and-trade is. I'm looking at your chart up there. This is part of the $1.4 trillion increase over the next 10 years. And if you start counting how many zeroes are behind $1 trillion, it is a whole lot of zeroes. There are a lot of taxpayer dollars that we are talking about. This cap-and-trade heaps another $646 billion tax increase on families. And what that means in this budget that is being proposed right now is that it will increase prices for 95 percent of our families. For everyone who turns on their TV, who fills up their gas tank and who turns on their heat in the winter, this budget, the cap-and-trade proposal that they talked about, that some people are referring to now as a cap-and-tax, anything that is using carbon, it is estimated to heap again at least a $646 billion tax increase on families, their natural gas, electricity, home heating and gasoline bills. During this difficult time when families are hurting, when small businesses are struggling, I would agree 100 percent with Dr. Roe, that this is not the way to turn our economy around and stimulate our economy. We should be going the opposite way. We should be giving families relief. And it is important again to note that we did have an alternative plan out there. We are not trying to be obstructors here on this budget. We have good ideas that will help stimulate this economy, that will help create jobs, that will give families permanent tax relief that they need right now. And unfortunately, these ideas are not being considered when these bills are coming to the floor.