Kevin Brady

Mr. BRADY of Texas

Mr. BRADY of Texas. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BRADY of Texas. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds. I would make the point that the Chinese currency appreciated 20 percent during President Bush's administration. It had no impact on the trade deficit. It has only appreciated 5 percent under the current administration, with no impact on the trade deficit. I reserve my time.

Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake), who is, again, focused on jobs and getting this economy back on track, as well as limiting the size of these dangerous debts and deficits.

Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).

Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling), who is focused on jobs, spending, and getting this economy back on track.

Mr. BRADY of Texas. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Rogers).

Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BRADY of Texas. At this time I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Tim Murphy).

Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Boustany), who has played a key role in opening trade barriers for U.S. products.

Mr. BRADY of Texas. I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. BRADY of Texas

Mr. BRADY of Texas. I thank my friend, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. LoBiondo), for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 6016, the Audit the BP Fund Act of 2010. I urge support for the bill that would provide for an ongoing independent Government Accountability Office investigation and audit of the operations of the compensation fund created by BP to reimburse those who were harmed by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico beginning on April 20, 2010. The bill specifically determines the effectiveness, including the timeliness of claim payments and the accuracy of these operations in determining amounts of damages compensated. I believe the BP fund was established to help make whole the economies along the gulf coast that were damaged or destroyed by the disaster. $20 billion, as we know, is a tremendous amount of money, and it can go a long way to compensate gulf coast victims of the spill. We must ensure that compensation is done fairly, timely, and without bias, political pressure, or fraud. We have heard complaints from State and local attorneys critical of the overly restrictive terms. Others have said there's not been enough time to assess the damages. Others are concerned that fraudsters will take money away from those honest people and families and businesses that are waiting for their dollars. And thus far, the fund has paid out about $400 million to approximately 30,000 claimants. Obviously, that is about 2 percent of the fund. That is slow--we think a little too inefficient for those who have been damaged--and this is precisely why we need this bill, to ensure that the fund functions as it should. With that, I urge support for H.R. 6016.

Mr. BRADY of Texas

Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Chairman, this bill is a thinly disguised roadblock, a permanent roadblock to American energy. It will drive American companies out of the gulf, delay future drilling, increase dependence on foreign oil, kill 300,000 good-paying U.S. energy jobs and levy a new $22 billion tax on American energy, but not on foreign oil. It includes a protectionist measure that the White House itself is troubled about that invites retaliation, will kill U.S. jobs and prevent repairs from occurring in U.S. shipyards. This is a choice between American energy workers and foreign oil. No Texas lawmaker, no gulf State lawmaker can support this bill and say they truly care about energy workers' jobs in America.

Mr. BRADY of Texas

Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, with millions of American families out of work, Republicans will fight for American energy workers and their jobs. The question is will Democrats fight alongside us? The drilling moratorium is killing American energy jobs now. It needs to end now. The rigs are already leaving overseas. So are the jobs, equipment, and the capital. Workers are being laid off, small businesses are struggling to survive, and they won't. The Melancon amendment doesn't save these jobs, these families, these small businesses whose livelihoods are at risk. It does not end the current moratorium that's devastating us now. The Republican motion to recommit will. It is the only vote on this floor where each lawmaker can stand up and fight for these American energy workers right now.

Mr. BRADY of Texas

Mr. BRADY of Texas. Madam Speaker, on Monday, July 26, 2010, I was unable to cast my vote in support of the Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act. I am in support of this legislation and its passage.

Mr. BRADY of Texas

Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the leadership of Chairman Markey and Ranking Member Barton on this issue. I rise as the ranking member of the Trade Subcommittee on Ways and Means, not on the underlying bill, but on specific provisions. Specifically, I am troubled to see that this bill includes the controversial ``Buy American'' provisions that closely mirror the failed stimulus bill. It makes no sense to repeat provisions that have delayed deployment of stimulus funding, led to unnecessary cost inflation, confused local officials, and impeded the creation of American jobs, clogging, not priming, U.S. economic recovery. These provisions have also created serious concerns under our international obligations and invited our trading partners to adopt their own ``buy local'' laws, hurting our ability to sell abroad and harming U.S. jobs. In this global environment, it is not simply enough to buy American; we have to sell American throughout the world for American jobs and American workers. It's unfortunate we are repeating these mistakes. As this bill moves forward, I will continue to object and seek to strip these provisions out of the bill.

Mr. BRADY of Texas

Mr. BRADY of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate and admire the fierce tenacity of Chairwoman Maloney as she fights for her constituents in New York, but I have a real problem with the way the bill is paid for. Looking at Texas Task Force 1 standing at Ground Zero, going through that rubble and their heroism, themselves, they went there to save survivors, not to raise taxes. And that's what this bill does. It kills American jobs. It raises taxes on companies that invest in America, that build American plants, that hire American workers, buy American equipment, pay American taxes. It punishes those companies that create U.S. jobs $7 billion. Why would we use 9/11 as an excuse to harm American jobs? It makes no sense at all. We can do better than this. We have to do better than this. This tax increase is absolutely inappropriate, and I urge its defeat.

Mr. BRADY of Texas

Mr. BRADY of Texas. This recovery is different. America's not bouncing back because government's in the way, because this Congress is the obstacle, this White House is the obstacle. Stop passing tax increases. Stop standing in the way of our jobs, of our growth, of our prosperity. This bill kills more jobs than it creates. It doesn't deserve to go any farther. I will vote ``no'' and urge Members to vote ``no'' as well.

Mr. BRADY of Texas. The gentleman from Michigan is right. This bill is more proof of failed economic policies of Washington Democrats, and I think they've acknowledged and they've admitted that that massive $860 billion stimulus bill has failed. It's failed the American public. It's failed 15 million American workers who are out of work, and about a third of them who've almost given up on ever finding a job. And we were promised, when that huge stimulus bill was passed, that unemployment would go down--it went up--that we would have 7 million more jobs than we do today. They promised the jobs would come from Main Street from small businesses. It turns out, as Mr. Camp said, all of the new jobs are in government. And government jobs only last as long as you're paying out of your pocketbook to keep them on that job. That's why this recovery is one of the slowest in America's history because consumers, they're scared to spend because they see all of this debt in Washington and they wonder who's going to have to pay it all back, and they know it's them. Businesses aren't bringing back new workers, aren't hiring new ones because they're afraid of the types of proposals like this they see in Washington, D.C. I remember the President standing at the White House saying, If you pass the stimulus bill, it will jump-start the economy and restore consumer confidence. Well, the economy certainly isn't jump-started. And today, 90 percent of Americans believe this economy is in bad shape. Most of them think it's not going to get any better any time soon. And from a jobs standpoint, this bill may actually destroy more jobs than it creates, and this is why: America has one of the worst tax codes in the world. You know that if you've had to pay taxes. It's even worse when American companies try to sell our American goods and services around the world, when you try to compete around the world. We double tax our American businesses--we're one of the few countries that do that--so, oftentimes they lose out on contracts. They can't sell their products because of this horrible tax code. What this bill does is ensure that they are double taxed. In the past, what we said is we'll try to help you, American business, by removing one of those layers of tax. This puts it back. So, at a time when we need to sell more U.S. goods and services, create more American jobs, this bill actually does the opposite. It taxes our U.S. companies more when they try to sell and compete. That means our workers lose out. That means our workers lose their jobs. That means other foreign countries gain and America loses. This bill is, again, one of the reasons this antijob, antibusiness, antigrowth Congress and White House are holding this economy back, keeping us from recovering, holding our hopes, I think, hostage to this ``let's tax everyone'' mentality. I'm convinced Americans are genetically disposed to bouncing back from recessions.

Mr. BRADY of Texas

Mr. BRADY of Texas. I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. BRADY of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)