Roy Blunt

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. And let me say to start with that I am in complete agreement, as approximately 407 of our Members-plus will be with the gentleman from Texas, the gentleman from Tennessee, and the gentleman from Illinois. I appreciate the work Mr. Gordon and Mr. Hall have done to get this bill to the floor. In fact, Missouri State University, right next to my home in Springfield, has a leading project going on in nanotechnology. I think it is important. I was one of those 407 people that voted for this bill last year. I expect a vote for this bill today. And as Mr. Cohen earlier said, as a Member of the minority, I want to talk about what we're not doing on the floor today. I want to talk about the fact that somewhere, while we're out here debating a bill where we'll spend $1 million a year that's already passed the House last year, 407-6, somewhere in this building--and that's significant because I don't know where it is and I don't think the Republican conferees, all two of them, know either--somewhere in this building, meetings are going on to decide how we spend $800 billion. For $800 billion, if I could use the analogy that Mr. Hall used, if the thickness of this paper is 100,000 nanometers, the thickness of this paper is 100,000 nanometers, if you stacked these pieces of paper one on top of each other, 27\1/2\ feet high, you'd be at 800 billion nanometers. So if pieces of paper represented $100,000, you'd have to be 27\1/2\ feet high to be to $800 billion. This is a huge amount of money. And later, if greater experts than me at nanotechnology figure out that it's only 26 feet, it's still a lot of money. It's $800 billion. Last year when we worked together on a stimulus package--not the case this year--we said, the Speaker said, I said, others said, a stimulus package has to be timely, it has to be targeted, it has to be temporary. And I'd advance the idea that this is none of those. It's certainly not timely. Alice Rivlin said the other day--this is the former budget director for President Clinton--no more than one out of ten of these dollars can be spent this year. There are some other estimates that, well, maybe it's as high as two out of ten. So my question is, why are we spending the other 80 or 90 percent as if it was a stimulus package as opposed to just something somebody in this building wants to do and in fact is going to do for a long time which comes to targeted. I'd also suggest that more than anything else, this bill is a collection of what the new majority has wanted to do for a decade. I believe I could go through the debates of the House over the last 10 years and find virtually every single thing in this bill having been proposed some time during the last 10 years and we didn't do it because sometimes because the majority thought it was a bad idea, often because the majority at that time, the other side, my side, thought we just simply couldn't afford it. And temporary? The last dollar to be spent in that bill wherever it's being developed is spent in 2019. Not timely, not temporary, not targeted. And if you're measuring it in money, lots of nanometers of money. In fact, the bill that we think we saw earlier the size of, the total cost per page of that bill was over $7 million. The total cost per word, rather, was $7 million. The total cost per page was $1.2 billion. One thing the Congress will do in all likelihood this week is set a record that won't be challenged for a long time in how fast we can spend how much money. We're going to make nanotechnology look like it's an old science compared to the new technology of spending money. So while we're debating this bill that absolutely will pass, that there is virtually unanimous agreement on, some group of people in the majority of the House and Senate is deciding what that big bill is going to look like. And believe me, most of us will have no idea what's in it the day we vote for it. It will be impossible to know, and only over the next 6 months when the American people find out what's in that bill, will Members of Congress begin to wish that they had not voted for the bill today and taken the time this kind of spending deserves.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlelady for yielding. On the debate before us today, this has been a discussion that has been going on in the country for 3 years now. It was mentioned earlier that there were people who didn't know that this date was pending. I don't know how you could possibly be watching television and not know that this date was coming up. This has been the most broadcast, the most communicated date in the history of broadcasting. And if you don't know that this date is coming up, you're probably not watching television. And if you're not watching television, you probably won't know on February 18 whether it occurred or not. There are really three important reasons not to pass this rule and not to pass this bill. One is first responders. The 9/11 Commission, in discussion after discussion since then and before then, has talked about getting all of our first responders on one level where they could communicate. All you have to do is have a flood, a tornado or an ice storm in your area to know that when the first responders come in to help, no matter how well your own first responders are communicating, when the first responders come in to help, they could be much more helpful if they could all communicate together immediately. And they cannot do that until the last person gets off the spectrum that is allocated to them. Many of them are ready to do it on February 18. Others might be on March 1. But it doesn't matter. We're saying they can't communicate because we're not going to take people off the spectrum. Also, is a 3-year plan better than a 115-day plan? The truth is, my friends, the people who win today, and I assume the majority will win since they had a majority of votes on suspension, the people who win will lose this argument in mid-June. In mid-June, there will be problems, just like there will be a few problems on February 18. In my district, the speculation is 99 percent of the people are ready for this transition. The original bill said that we would automatically make the transition when 85 percent were ready. The number was used a minute ago that 95 percent are ready in the whole country now. There are going to be problems in mid-June. And some of these problems are going to be because of what we do here today. There have been people contracted for 2 years, in some cases almost 3 years, to come in on February 17, to be there until a time certain on February 18, to make this transition happen. Those same people aren't going to be available to be contracted for whatever this day is in June. And of course the third reason is we sold the spectrum. I was originally skeptical. I thought, well, maybe we should keep the spectrum longer so it gets worth more. One thing, it actually brought more in the auction than had been anticipated, two things, in the time since we made this decision and today, we went from number 2 in broadband communication in the world to number 16 or number 19. We need to move on with this. We sold the spectrum. We cashed the $20 billion in checks, and now we say we're not going to deliver what we agreed to deliver. The government needs to keep its word on this and every other item.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, last year, I worked with the Speaker to help pass a stimulus bill that the Speaker at that time said had to be, first of all, timely and targeted. And, Madam Speaker, I would argue that this bill is neither. It's certainly not targeted; it's a broad brush of everything that the majority has wanted to do for the last decade even before they were in the majority. And it's not timely. In fact, the estimates are that 7 percent of the money that would be spent in this bill could be spent in the next year. Alice Rivlin, President Clinton's budget director, said yesterday before the House Budget Committee, we would be a lot better off if we were debating that 7 percent, and we were taking the other 93 percent and having hearings and trying to do what the Speaker said in her fact sheet we had done here. Ms. Foxx just mentioned this fact sheet--which, frankly, Madam Speaker, wasn't even factual when it was printed. It says in my committee, the Energy and Commerce Committee, that six Republican amendments were adopted and incorporated into the bill. Three of them were already taken out of the bill before the fact sheet was printed, Madam Speaker.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Three of these were already out of the bill when this was printed. The amendment I had just simply said nothing in this legislation would prevent pharmacists from talking to their patients. That wasn't quite good enough. So in the 12- hour markup--that really did nothing to change the bill as it turns out--we spent 3 hours of that 12 hours agreeing on language so pharmacists could talk to their patients, and that language was taken out before this fact sheet was even printed. The fact sheet is not factual. The stimulus isn't stimulating. I urge that we defeat this rule and defeat this bill.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer).

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Nebraska, a member of our committee, Mr. Terry.

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I yield my minute-and-a-half to the ranking member of the Health Subcommittee on Energy and Commerce, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Deal).

Mr. BLUNT. Inquiring, does the gentleman have any additional speakers besides his closing comments?

Mr. BLUNT. Can I ask how much time is remaining on each side?

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Latham). (Mr. LATHAM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BLUNT. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton).

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan, a member of the Health Subcommittee, Mr. Rogers.

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas, a member of the Ways and Means Committee (Mr. Culberson).

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 more seconds. In the final bill, we assume that 65 percent of the children receiving the benefit wouldn't get the benefit anymore. It seems to me this bill needs more work, would have benefited from a committee hearing. It doesn't prioritize poor kids to ensure that they get health care first. I look forward to the debate today. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to a member of the Health Subcommittee of the full committee, Mr. Shadegg from Arizona.

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas, Dr. Burgess, who is on our committee and on the subcommittee.

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. As I have returned to a more active role in the Energy and Commerce Committee, Madam Speaker, in this Congress, I will say I was surprised not to have a markup of this bill. We don't have to reauthorize this program until April. Certainly I'm for, as almost all the Members are for, a reauthorization of the current program and even for discussing how we can make that program better. But we didn't have a markup. We didn't see the bill, at least I haven't seen it, until today. And I have concerns about this bill. Certainly there are several reasons to look at this bill and think we could have improved it, bring it to the floor. Poor kids first, poor children first being served was the reason to have SCHIP, for children whose families couldn't afford insurance. This bill doesn't require the States to meet any kind of threshold standard that would ensure that States were doing everything they could to find kids who needed insurance before they begin to spend money to find kids who may not have the same need. Under the bill several thousands of American families would be poor enough to qualify for SCHIP and have the government pay for their health care, but they'd be rich enough to still be required to pay the alternative minimum tax. The bill changes welfare participation laws by eliminating the 5-year waiting period for legal immigrants to lawfully reside in the country before they can participate in this program. The bill significantly weakens provisions in current law requiring citizenship verification standards before an individual can be enrolled in this particular program. The bill will ship 2.4 million privately insured children to a government-run program. We think we have a better response. While there will be debate about how this bill is paid for, the biggest problem in the paid-for is in the 10th year, the final year, we assume that 65 percent of the people who are receiving the benefit----

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the newest member of our committee, who is going to add a lot on health care issues, Dr. Gingrey from Georgia.

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I think we are here today on the minority side as perhaps victims of our own success in the last Congress. We clearly were able to use this as the only tool that we often had available to us, and we used it with great success. We used it with great success that didn't destroy the legislative process. In fact, many days the legislative process had already been destroyed. There was no committee markup. There was no hearing. Often the bills came from somewhere, the leader's office, the Speaker's office. We didn't know where they came from because we didn't see them until the day they were headed to the floor or the day before they were headed to the floor. We weren't given amendments, we weren't given substitutes, but we were given 100 years ago these tools in the motions to recommit. The majority would probably argue that somehow this makes the process unworkable. But there are a number of examples in the last Congress where the process was very workable. The Public Housing Management Act that was brought to the floor February 26 by Mr. Sires, Mrs. Bachmann offered a motion to recommit to block the Federal Government from restricting possession of otherwise legal firearms for these residents. When she offered the motion, the bill was pulled. The committee then met, as the motion would have required them to do, added that provision to the bill, and brought it back to the floor a few days later. The AmeriCorps bill to authorize and expand AmeriCorps was considered in March of 2008. Mr. Kuhl made a motion to recommit that was prompt in nature to prohibit sex offenders and murderers from receiving these grants. The bill was pulled. Six days later, the same bill was brought up including Mr. Kuhl's language. The idea that this ruins the process or the idea that a bill that you have never seen before the day it is coming to the floor or the day before it is coming to the floor, we don't need to have tools to bring new ideas to the floor, is just wrong. I urge that this rules package be defeated.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor an Ozarks institution--KWTO Radio. AM 560 KWTO will celebrate its 75th anniversary of continuous service to Southwest Missouri providing music, news and information. On Christmas Day 1933, broadcast pioneer Ralph Foster brought KWTO to life with its first broadcast from the old Chamber of Commerce Building on St. Louis Street in Springfield. Foster decided that KWTO's hallmark would be to provide the highest quality news, weather, farm reports and entertainment to its listeners and dubbed the station's call letters ``Keep Watching the Ozarks.'' Adherence to that tradition has kept KWTO the region's longest continuously operating radio station. 75 years is a long time to keep any business going. By hiring great talent in broadcasting and entertainment, Foster amassed an amazing group of artists and journalists that would become well known and trusted names in radio. Floyd Sullivan, Bill Bailey and C.C. Williford, who was widely known as one of the nation's best weathermen, filled the region's airwaves from the 1930s. Another group of broadcasters were also laying the foundation for what would become ``the Golden Age'' of entertainment on KWTO AM. Slim Wilson, George Earl and Bill Ring were the showmen that Foster and associate Si Simon used to launch and develop programming that would take a weekly ``hillbilly variety'' program and turned it into one of televisions early sensations. KWTO's Korn's-A-Krackin', which began airing during World War II and continued into the 1960s, was picked up nationally by the Mutual Broadcast System. In July 1954, KWTO became part of American broadcast history when the KWTO Barn Dance program was revamped for the brand new medium and named The Ozarks Jubilee. This live program broadcast from Springfield was an early TV hit (1955 to 1960 on ABC). KWTO, which also produced the Ozarks Country Jubilee, and its television cousin used local artists like Wilson, Red Foley, Mother Maybelle Carter and the Carter Family, Johnny Cash, Porter Waggoner, Les Paul, Brenda Lee and a guitar player named Chet Atkins. These were staff musicians hired to perform live on KWTO from the 1930s through 1950s well before they established iconic careers in country music that led many to Country Music Hall of Fame and/or the Grand Ole Opry decades later. Other notables broadcasting for KWTO at the start of their careers: Charles McCord, from the nationally syndicated Don Imus Show, and whose grandmother, May Kennedy McCord, was also a KWTO broadcaster during the 40s and 50s. Jim Bohannon, now nationally syndicated and a member of the Radio Broadcaster Hall of Fame, was a news reporter at KWTO. Les Garvin, creator of MTV. While not originating his program from KWTO, Ralph Foster's close friend Paul Harvey frequently broadcasted live from the KWTO studio. More contemporary alums from KWTO now hold important positions in business, education and broadcasting including Greene County Clerk Richard Struckhoff, President of the St. Johns Foundation Mike Peters, and Vice President of University Advancement at Missouri State University Brent Dunn, just to name a few. KWTO has long provided vital information to its family of listeners on local and world events. It's where Ozarkers learned on a cold December morning about the attack on Pearl Harbor and heard President Roosevelt's response a day later. KWTO was also the source for news of the surrender of the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces. Its broadcasters reported the shocking news of President Roosevelt's death as well as the elation of President Harry Truman's surprise win in 1948. KWTO was home to the Lone Ranger and many other radio favorites for generations. KWTO's commitment to community involvement has also been an integral part of its mission to enhance the quality of life for its listeners. There was ``free ride day'' that started as a charity event cosponsored with the Salvation Army at the Ozark Empire Fair and the hugely successful KWTO Christmas Parties held at the Shrine Mosque that drew crowds so large some people had to be turned away. Local news has always been a critical part of KWTO's commitment to the region. Reporting on a wide range of social, political, law enforcement, and events that marked and shaped the area was a mainstay of everyday programming. In more recent years, the KWTO microphones have been opened to the public for talk show programming that gives voice to a range of opinions. This Christmas Day AM 560 KWTO Radio will celebrate its 75th year of operations and its continuing dedication to serving the Ozarks. I wish KWTO and its current owner Kenneth Myer continued success and many more years of ``Keep Watching the Ozarks.''

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, today I rise to congratulate St. John's Health System in Springfield, MO, for their work to improve the quality of health care services provided to our seniors. St. John's Health System was recently recognized by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for their outstanding commitment to improving Medicare patient outcomes as participants in a new chronic disease management demonstration program. Nearly 70 percent of all deaths in America are attributable to chronic diseases. Chronic diseases like heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are some of the most common diseases but they are also the most preventable diseases. Working to prevent these diseases from being acquired in the first place should be our top priority. Managing these diseases so that adverse outcomes are minimized should be next on the list. Unfortunately, most of the health insurance programs that the Federal Government operates do not place the same prioritization in its payment policies. We don't encourage individuals to seek preventative care and we barely reward individuals who change their lifestyles when diagnosed. We pay in the end with the final bill, but the Federal Government doesn't pay for the course of treatment that will deliver better health outcomes and a longer, more productive life. Ultimately all Americans pay the price for the high costs of chronic diseases. Over the past 2 years St. John's Health System has participated in a national demonstration program. The results of this project will help to identify new, innovative models to deliver higher quality health care. St. John's was one of only five physician groups that achieved benchmark quality performance for all measures used during the evaluation. I am pleased that St. John's is being recognized nationally for their excellent care for the citizens of southwest Missouri. I hope that, following St. John's leadership, the final results of the demonstration program will bring meaningful changes in delivery of health care services for all of our seniors.