David Dreier

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Monday next for morning hour debate.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Obviously, the House has completed its work for the day and for the week. We will convene at 12:30 on Monday for morning hour and at 2 p.m. for legislative business. We will consider several measures under suspension of the rules. A final list of those measures to be scheduled will be getting to Members' offices by the end of the day. Any votes that may be called on those measures will be rolled until 6:30 Monday afternoon or early Monday evening. For Tuesday and the balance of the week, if the gentleman will continue to yield, the House will consider additional legislation under suspension of the rules, as well as two measures, the one I just mentioned, H.R. 1751, and I announced the filing of amendments for that, and also the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which is much talked about here. We also anticipate that the House will next week consider additional appropriations conference reports as they become available. On Friday, we will not be in session, as Members know, so that there will be an opportunity for all of us to participate in Veterans' Day ceremonies that take place in our districts. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding; and I would be happy to entertain any questions he might have.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I would say that we are taking that into consideration. We do not have it scheduled at this moment, but I appreciate my friend's raising this issue, and we will certainly take it under advisement and look at your recommendation, I hope from your perspective, favorably.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I will say that this very important legislation, which I personally support, is at this moment being discussed by the leadership of the Financial Services Committee. They are working with the Department of the Treasury and Members in the leadership of the Banking Committee on the other side of the aisle, and we do hope very much that we will be able to put together a legislative package that can be considered before that very important December 31 date to which my friend referred.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, what this deals with is mandatory spending, and what this deals with is the deficit challenge which Democrats and Republicans regularly decry here, and we are trying to focus on the reduction of the deficit, and that is the reason that we are appropriately referring to this as the Deficit Reduction Act.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, as I think the gentleman heard in my announcement, I announced that it is our anticipation, we anticipate that we will consider what we call the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, and it is a measure which we will be working on next week. Late next week or the middle to the latter part of next week, we anticipate a vote here in the House on that very important measure that is designed to try and reduce the deficit and reform government and ensure that we can do the very important work that the American people sent us here to do.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I will tell my colleagues that the State I represent is nearly 3,000 miles away, and we are having a very important election in our State. I have voted by absentee ballot. I did that just this week and sent my ballot in. We have a great deal of work to do, not only on Tuesday but next week, so we will be meeting here, and we have the items that I mentioned, the measures that will be considered under suspension, we have the very important Secure Access to Justice and Court Protection Act that needs to be considered, and we just have to proceed with our work. So let me say that we do want every Member to participate in those elections, but I suspect that, in light of the fact that we will have so much work to do here, that Members should plan to be in Washington during the day on Tuesday.

Mr. DREIER. All three of those bills that I mentioned, the Energy and Water conference report and the Science, State, Justice, and Commerce conference report, and Military Quality of Life, they are all in conference as we speak. It is our hope that those conferences will be completed and those conference reports will be filed in the House. We cannot anticipate exactly when their work will be completed. We just want it to happen as expeditiously as possible.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, as I said in my remarks earlier today, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis), has done an absolutely phenomenonal job in moving these measures through. As you know, we have just voted on the foreign operations appropriations bill conference report, and we have three conference groups that are continuing to meet on Energy and Water, the Science, State, Justice, and Commerce appropriation bill, and the Military Quality of Life appropriations conference report. From the conversation I have had with the chairman of the committee, it is his hope that we have those three measures up for consideration at some point next week.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, that is basically what has happened with the establishment of the committee which was put into place which was modeled after the committees that have looked at the October Surprise, that have looked at Iran-Contra, other issues that have come forward. We tried to put together a bicameral committee that was focused on it.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding to me. Let me just say right now we are very proud of the fact that we have put into place a committee that the Speaker of the House has established which has been interviewing, in fact, among others, Mike Brown, the gentleman just mentioned by my friend.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding to me. I simply would like to say that when it comes to the issue of taking responsibility, we clearly are going to respond to the kinds of outrageous things that we have been hearing for the last few minutes about the state of the U.S. economy, about where we are headed as a Nation and about the kinds of challenges that we have and, quite frankly, about our desire to work in a bipartisan way to address these issues. So I am proud to take responsibility for these very important things.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding to me. Let me just say that that is completely untrue. Of the amendments that have been made in order in this Congress, 161 of the amendments reported out of the Rules Committee have been either Democratic amendments or bipartisan amendments; 143 of the amendments have been Republican amendments. More amendments have been made in order that were either bipartisan or offered by Democrats than Republicans. So it is a specious argument that my friend has made.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DREIER. I am happy to respond to that by saying very simply that it is not the work of the Republicans or the Democrats. It is the work of the committee. It is up to the committee to make a determination as to whether or not someone was subpoenaed. Now you have referred to him, using the same terminology that the President referred to Michael Brown as, which I understand is ``Brownie.'' Did he or did he not appear before that bipartisan committee that was established by Speaker Hastert?

Mr. DREIER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DREIER. Let me just say, no, we are not doing that.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, let me just say to my friend that I believe that what we should do is we should take our constitutional responsibility, our constitutionally mandated responsibility according to Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, for oversight of the executive branch. We should pursue that as vigorously as we possibly can. And I will say to my friend, that if, in fact, after doing that, having Democrats and Republicans work in a bipartisan way on the commission that the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) is chairing, if we do not see the kind of information that we knew, if we do not see the kind of scrutiny that we all believe should be applied in looking at the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I will support the gentleman's motion of putting together that bipartisan commission.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I have taken this Special Order out to talk about a number of very specific issues, and I would like to begin by referencing an article that I read earlier this week in Agence France, the publication, and that article had to do with the issue of outsourcing. Mr. Speaker, a year ago at this time we had people in the mainstream media, we had commentators all over the United States referring to the issue of outsourcing. There was a sense somehow that Americans were losing their jobs en mass. Why? Because their jobs were all going to Mexico, their jobs were all going to other countries in Latin America, their jobs were all going to China, their jobs were going to India, their jobs were going to Pakistan; and we have continued to hear time and time again that the issue of outsourcing is one which is wiping out and devastating the U.S. economy. Well, this article to which I have referred was reporting the fact that outsourcing, outsourcing, has actually created a net increase in jobs here in the United States. This report found that offshore outsourcing resulted in the creation of more than 419,000 jobs, compared to the 162,000 technology jobs that have been displaced from the United States. So when people look at the fact that, yes, some jobs have gone overseas, they forget to look at the fact that we have had a surge in job creation that is in fact a by-product of so-called outsourcing. The chief economist at Global Insight said no one is denying that there are job losses, but the net effect is that you create more jobs than you lose. So I think it is a very important point, Mr. Speaker. My friends who were just talking on the other side of the aisle are among those who cry the loudest when they refer to this issue of outsourcing. Again, we are not saying there has not been some displacement. Change is inevitable. But one of the arguments I like to make on this, Mr. Speaker, is that the United States of America is providing the global leadership that we need when it comes not only militarily and geopolitically, but economically; and if we do not shape that global economy, the United States of America will be shaped by it. So when we have hand-wringing over outsourcing, we, of course, are saddened that anyone would possibly see the shift of a job. But as the chief economist at Global Insight said, no one is denying that there are job losses, but the net effect is that you create more jobs. That report concluded that the net benefit to the U.S. gross domestic product from outsourcing and a stronger economy was over $68 billion in 2005 alone, $68 billion. By 2010, this net effect will rise to over $147 billion. Now, I am pointing to this issue, Mr. Speaker, because of the fact that I have listened to these arguments that are being made by my friends on the other side of the aisle that the United States of America is going to hell in a handbasket, is basically what they are arguing, and that the United States economy is devastated, we are not competitive, we are not creating jobs. Mr. Speaker, I wonder what kind of world I am living in when elected representatives of the American people can come to that kind of conclusion. It is absolutely preposterous. It is outrageous that anyone could come to a conclusion like that. Why? A week ago today, Mr. Speaker, a week ago today we got the report that the U.S. economy in the last quarter grew at a rate of 3.8 percent, 3.8 percent GDP growth. That is a very impressive figure, a very impressive figure by any standard. But it is an incredible figure when you look at what it was up against. One of the worst days in our Nation's history will have been just 2 months ago when we saw what has been described as the worst natural disaster to ever hit the United States, that being, of course, Hurricane Katrina. Then we have seen Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Wilma. And what happened when these disasters hit, and our thoughts and prayers continues to be with all of those who were victimized by those horrible natural disasters, but when we heard the news and saw the pictures of this devastation, what was the sense that most people had? This is going to be a solid blow at the U.S. economy. It is going to really, really hurt the U.S. economy. The projections were that as soon as numbers began to come in on the issue of the impact of Hurricane Katrina, there would be a net job loss in the United States of 200,000, maybe even higher than that. Then we got the report from the payroll survey. Tragically, 35,000 was the net job loss, according to the payroll survey. That is not great news. But when you look at the fact that we had just shouldered the worst natural disaster in our Nation's history, it was incredibly positive news. Then when you look at the household survey, which is a much better gauge, a much better gauge because it takes into account small businessmen and -women, those who are self-employed, a lot of people in especially the biotech industry who are not included in the traditional establishment payroll survey, the household survey found a great surge of about a quarter of a million net jobs gained during that period of time since Hurricane Katrina. So as I listen to my colleagues say that we are running the United States of America into the ground and that our country is in deep trouble, it is just a mischaracterization. I know we have challenges. I read the newspaper. I watch television. I experience going to California, listening and talking to people from all across this country, looking at our challenges internationally, looking at what is going on in Iraq, looking at the fact that we are daily fighting the global war on terror. I recognize that we have serious problems. But, Mr. Speaker, one of the most important things that we can do in dealing with every single one of those problems is make sure the U.S. economy continues to grow. The other day I shared an anecdote of an experience I had just a few weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit. I was visiting my family in my original hometown of Kansas City, Missouri, and was out having lunch on a Sunday. I talked to one of the people working there, and I said, Well, how has business been? And this man said to me, I don't know. I have only worked here for a few days. I said, Oh, really? Okay. He said, I was the chef at Brennan's in New Orleans, and my entire family has been able to move here to Kansas City, Missouri. We are staying with other family members. We like it here. I have this job here now, and we are very grateful for that. The point being that the overall strength of the U.S. economy has been able to deal with the challenge of 1.2 million of our fellow Americans who were displaced and devastated by these natural disasters. So that is why I argue, Mr. Speaker, that as we look at how we deal with the aftermath of the hurricane, the single most important thing we can do for everyone involved is to ensure that we continue the growth of the U.S. economy. Now, thinking back to some of the arguments I heard just a few minutes ago from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, they were talking about our deficit reduction bill we are going to be voting on here next week. Mr. Speaker, we are going to be voting on that measure. Why? Because we know very well that reforming government, doing everything that we can to reform our Nation's government, to ensure that those who are truly in need are able to receive the assistance necessary, but at the same time making sure that those who are not truly in need and those who do not qualify, those who abuse the system, areas where we see waste and fraud, that we tackle those. Mr. Speaker, we are poised with the deficit reduction bill that we are going to work on next week to do just that. I listened to my friend on the other side of the aisle talk about the fact that we are going to be throwing starving people out into the streets, preventing people from getting educations and doing all of these things. Once again, nothing could be further from the truth. We are looking at the issue of Medicaid, a program that is designed to provide health care for those who are truly in need. They will be talking about this over the weekend and next week as the debate proceeds on our Deficit Reduction Act, and they will say that we want to pull the rug out from under people who are very much in need. Mr. Speaker, while I believe sincerely as a Republican that the Federal Government should be the last source to which people look for assistance, we do have a Medicaid program that is in place, and not one of us wants to do anything to see someone who is desperately in need hurt. But when we have those who are not desperately in need, who abuse the system, it is something that needs to be addressed; and that is exactly what this legislation is all about. My friend, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) who chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee, has gone into great detail, and he will next week, about the Medicaid provisions. They came from his committee. Right now, the rate of growth of spending in the area of Medicaid is 7.3 percent a year. By looking at these reforms, the measure that we are going to be voting on next week will provide an increase in Medicaid spending of 7 percent. Not 7.3 percent, 7 percent. Three- tenths of one percent. That simply is slowing the rate of growth of spending in this program. So the notion that somehow we want to turn our backs on people who are in need is just plain wrong and inaccurate. Now, in looking at these reforms, what do we want to do? We want to take issues like asset dumping. Asset dumping is a scenario whereby people will take their home, which has a great deal of value, and they will get rid of that home. Why? So that they can qualify for this Medicare program that is designed to assist the indigent, the very poor. Having someone with an asset of half a million dollars benefit from basically a welfare program was never the intent of the Medicaid program at all, but there are people who are doing that now. So it is our goal to ensure that people who are truly, truly in need, will be the ones who receive this much-needed assistance. Mr. Speaker, a lot is going to be said about these issues; and I believe when we look at our Deficit Reduction Act, our goal is, as I like to say, Mr. Speaker, not simply to try and reduce spending by $50 billion, if that is what the number ends up being. Of course, those are savings for the American people. Our goal is to try to work and bring the deficit down. Democrats and Republicans alike decry deficit spending. That is something that is great. That is something we want to work on in a bipartisan way. That is what this Deficit Reduction Act is about. I hope Democrats will join with us in support of this measure to reduce the deficit by passing the Deficit Reduction Act. It is not simply about dollars; it is about the reach of the Federal Government. I have been listening over the last few days to some horror stories of the kinds of things that the government does. Many of those things discourage individual initiative and responsibility. It brought to mind for me 1996 and 1997 when we were working very hard to pass important welfare reform. We know, Mr. Speaker, that we have seen a generational cycle of welfare, going back to the much lauded and very well intended Great Society of Lyndon Baines Johnson. We have seen trillions of dollars, trillions of dollars, spent on perpetuating the welfare state, and yet the level of poverty has continued in this country in many areas. Why? Because it has been a generational cycle of welfare. So in 1996 and 1997, we began the effort to alter that, to change that generational cycle of dependence; and we passed welfare reform. I can remember instances where people who have been receiving for generations welfare, they have been discouraged from working because of their dependence on Federal Government assistance, that many of these people were, because of our reforms, able to move to the working side of the economy rather than being on the receiving side of the economy; and, Mr. Speaker, they have been able to be self- sufficient, they have been able to support their families. But the most important thing, the most important thing, and I will never forget a woman from Long Beach, California, that talked about this, she had the pride back that she had lost. She had the pride back that she had lost for generations because of the fact that she was now able to be on the productive side of the U.S. economy. Mr. Speaker, I think that we should do all that we can to continue encourage more and more Americans to be on the productive side of the economy. And I have to say that we have the highest number of Americans working today. One hundred forty-two million Americans are working. Never before in the United States of America have we had so many Americans who are working. We have what has been traditionally considered to be full employment. The news just came out: The unemployment rate remains steady at 5.1 percent. Well, that 5.1 percent is lower than the average rate for unemployment through the decade of the 1970s, the 1980s, and the much- heralded 1990s. Years ago, full employment for the United States was considered to be 6 percent. If you had a 6 percent unemployment rate, it basically meant that every American who wanted to work and could work was working. Today, we have a 5.1 percent unemployment rate. So this notion that somehow the U.S. economy has gone to hell in a hand basket is again just plain wrong. You cannot only anecdotally but you can factually look at this. That is not to say that there are not people in the United States who are facing challenges, who are facing problems, who are facing difficulties. That has existed since the beginning of time, and we will always be expending time and effort trying to encourage people to work for themselves, and we will constantly try to put into place policies that will assist people in that goal of trying to be self-sufficient and to work and all. Mr. Speaker, as I look at these challenges, what is it that we can do to keep this economy growing? Well, there are a lot of things that we can do. Making sure that we make permanent those important, important measures that repeal the marriage tax penalty, that provides for the per child tax credit, a critically important thing, and at the same time recognize that we must have growth-oriented tax cuts. Now, as I stand here in this well, I am thinking about just the last few years when Members on the other side of the aisle said to us: If we cut taxes, the U.S. economy is going to go right down the drain and the U.S. budget deficit, our Federal deficit, will go sky high. Mr. Speaker, we have cut taxes, we have put into place the very, very important growth-oriented tax cuts for dividends and capital gains, and what is it that has happened? We have seen a surge of revenues, to the point where the Federal budget deficit has been improving. We have gotten basically a $108 billion spending reduction by virtue of the fact that the increased flow of revenues to the Federal Treasury has reduced the Federal deficit from the February projection by $108 billion. Now that came as a shock to many people, and unfortunately many of my friends on the other side of the aisle have failed to even recognize that. When they said, if you cut taxes, the economy will go into the tank and the deficit will go sky high, the exact opposite has happened. Our economy has surged to this very low unemployment rate, virtually full employment, tremendous numbers of jobs being created, fewer people on welfare and depending on the government for their sources of survival, and a reduction in the deficit itself. So these are things that, frankly, are real, Mr. Speaker. These are things that are out there, and these are things that the American people should understand. We will next week vote on this deficit reduction measure, and it will be mischaracterized. But, Mr. Speaker, the deficit reduction measure that we are putting into place designed to decrease the size of our deficit, cut Federal spending, and diminish that cycle of dependence on government and the reach of government is absolutely critical to our goal of sustaining economic growth. All of the benefits to which I referred over the last few minutes are there because of the strong economy, and next week's vote for deficit reduction will be a vote that will play a big role in seeing the U.S. economy continue to move boldly and dynamically into the 21st century. Now, Mr. Speaker, there is another aspect of economic growth that I think is very important. At this moment, the President of the United States and 34, all 34 of the democratically elected leaders in this hemisphere are in Argentina at the very important meeting of the Summit of the Americas. President Bush is there talking about a very important component of U.S. economic growth, and that happens to be the goal of establishing a free trade area of Americas within this hemisphere. Back in November of 1979, when Ronald Reagan announced that he was a candidate for the President of the United States, he envisaged this accord of free trade among all the Americas; and he was laughed at by many. Just the notion of establishing a free trade agreement with Canada, with Mexico was something people thought impossible. Mr. Speaker, it did take a long period of time, but we in 1993 did pass the North American Free Trade Agreement. We just 3 months ago passed the Central American Free Trade Agreement, building on the success of the North American Free Trade Agreement. And I know that my friends on the other side of the aisle will say the North American Free Trade Agreement has devastated the economy. Every ailment, every ailment of society, every single problem that we face is because of the North American Free Trade Agreement. I hear that constantly. Again, it is important to look at the numbers. The top priority for us: Border security, and national security. Border security is a very important part of national security. Economic growth in Latin America is essential to our stemming the flow of people coming illegally from Latin America and other parts of the world into the United States. Mr. Speaker, were it not for the North American Free Trade Agreement, more than a few people have told me that the problem of illegal immigration would be twice as bad as it is today were it not for the North American Free Trade Agreement. I know how serious it is. I am privileged to represent California here and will tell you that the problem of illegal immigration is a very, very important issue for us to address. And we are addressing it. I have legislation, H.R. 98, that calls for the establishment of a counterfeit-proof Social Security card so that the magnet of jobs that draws people illegally into the United States will not be able to be utilized because people will have a counterfeit-proof Social Security card, rather than using the 94 different documents that today are used by people here illegally, fraudulently in cases, to get jobs. Making sure that we do all that we can to continue to see the economy in this hemisphere grow is important. That is what President Bush is doing right now. As we see that growth, economic growth in Latin America, again, that will help us deal with the problem of border security. People come to this country, 98 percent of them at least, for one reason and one reason only, looking for jobs, looking to feed their families. We all know that. Everyone acknowledges that. So if we can see job opportunities throughout Latin America, it will lead people to do what they would rather do and that is stay in their home countries. So what has happened now? Because of the trade that we have seen take place between our two countries, we have seen the economies of both Mexico and other countries in Latin America and the United States grow. In fact, a third of $1 trillion in cross-border trade takes place between Mexico and the United States. I know that there has been this constant sense that there are only very rich or very poor in Mexico. You are either a multi-billionaire or you are impoverished. Not many people recognize, Mr. Speaker, that the middle-class population in Mexico is larger than the entire Canadian population, and it is growing. There are more people moving into that middle class in Mexico, and that is in large part because of the trade relationship between the United States and Mexico and the elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers that are taking place within the region with things like passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Mr. Speaker, as you look at the challenges that we have here at home, it really sickens me that people mischaracterize the positive things that have taken place. I do not diminish the problems that we have in any way. I do not diminish them at all. But I will say that we do have a lot that needs to be done, but we also have a lot of great things that have been done. It is imperative that, as we deal with these challenges that are out there, that we do not in fact eliminate the very positive steps that have been taken to see us have the success that we are enjoying in the global war on terror, see us enjoy the kind of prosperity that is enjoyed across the United States of America. With that, Mr. Speaker, let me say that I look forward anxiously to our passage of the Deficit Reduction Act next week, and I hope the Democrats will join with us in that goal.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I would hope that we could do it before Thanksgiving, before we adjourn on the 18th of November; but my hope is that we will be able to complete work on immigration reform and border security before we adjourn the first session of this Congress.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, let me say that, obviously, border security and immigration reform continue to be very high priorities for this majority, and I believe there is bipartisan concern about the issue of our national security, and border security is part of that. Immigration reform is something that I believe we need to address. We are going to continue to do everything that we possibly can to ensure that we address the issue of immigration reform before we adjourn this session of Congress.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take the time of the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton).