David Dreier

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. DREIER. I yield the gentleman 30 additional seconds.

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

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my friend from Houston, Texas (Mr. Culberson), a hardworking member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Grandfather Community, North Carolina (Ms. Foxx), a tireless worker on the Rules Committee.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, my friend from Houston wouldn't yield; so I will yield 30 seconds to my other friend from Houston, Mr. Culberson.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my very good friend from Lake Jackson, Texas (Mr. Paul). (Mr. PAUL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, while the President chose yesterday to engage in a strident, harsh, vitriolic attack on us, I'm going to respond by complimenting him. At the G20 meeting I was very gratified to see that the President came forward and said that we could create good private sector jobs right here in the United States of America if we were to proceed with ratification of the U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement. It will, in fact, Mr. Speaker, be the largest trade agreement in the history of the world. Now, some critics would say that calling for its renegotiation or delaying a vote until a lame duck session would be the wrong thing to do. But I will say that I believe anything that we can do to move in that direction is a positive. One cautionary note: There are two pending trade agreements with both Panama and Colombia that were negotiated before the U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement was completed. Millions and millions of consumers who would like to have the opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to purchase U.S. goods and services right here in our hemisphere are denied that opportunity. If we proceed with the U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement as the President has called for us to do, we must also proceed immediately with the Panama and Colombia free trade agreements as well.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for yielding. And, Mr. Speaker, I do so because unfortunately the manager on the other side of the aisle wouldn't yield to me. And I am happy within my 2-minute time frame to yield to him at any time when he would like to ask me to yield. Let me just say that the notion of saying that because Mr. Boehner argued that this bill is itself killing an ant with a nuclear weapon is designed to say this bill puts into place permanent bailout authority. Now, the American people are virulently opposed to going down this path that we already seem to be on of establishing bailout after bailout. And they know that it's a mistake. And so Mr. Boehner simply was arguing that while we all want to deal with the issue of regulatory reform to ensure that what we went through in the last 2 years will not confront us again, the idea of putting your hand up and saying, we know what they're all about--there is no one who wants to maintain the status quo. We all want to take steps to ensure that we don't have to suffer as we have for the past 2 years. But this bill establishing permanent bailout authority will in fact undermine our ability to get this economy back on track, and, as Mr. Bachus pointed out in his testimony upstairs in the Rules Committee a few minutes ago, will cost jobs. That's the reason we have great concerns about it. And on the issue of Social Security, the notion that somehow we are saying to someone who is on Social Security today that you are going to end up seeing the age increase to 70 is preposterous. We know full well that what's going to happen is we are talking about young workers today in their twenties and thirties who want to make sure that there is something there for Social Security. If we don't tackle the issue of entitlements, we won't be able to do what the American people have said this Congress should be doing, and that is reining in the kind of spending the likes of which--we have seen an 84 percent increase in nondefense spending in the last 17 months. We need to make sure we rein that in. And these kinds of proposals will do just that.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, at this time last year, we, for the first time in the 221-year history of our Republic, saw the appropriations process shut down, completely shut down. Never before had that happened. It was difficult to imagine that anything could be done to jeopardize and undermine openness, transparency, and accountability than shutting down the appropriations process. Well, Mr. Speaker, it's hard to believe, but this Democratic majority has gone one step further. Incomprehensible, but they have now decided not to pass a budget at all. Now, in the last 17 months, we have witnessed an 84 percent increase in nondefense discretionary spending. And we all know that a budget is a blueprint and absolutely essential if a majority is going to make any attempt whatsoever to govern. Well, Mr. Speaker, they have failed in the appropriations process, and now they have failed to come forward with even a budget. Our children and our grandchildren deserve better.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding. And I have to say that, with the exception of the two floor managers here, we have a Hoosier, Mr. Buyer, and of course two UCLA graduates, Mr. Waxman, who's already spoken, and Mr. Lewis, who is going to follow. As we take this time to very appropriately remember an amazing life, someone who--as was pointed out when Mr. Buyer mentioned his birth date, October would have marked his 100th birthday. So Coach Wooden lived virtually an entire century. And I was struck with the quote that Mr. Waxman reminded us of, that you've never lived a perfect day until you've done something for someone that cannot repay you. And Coach Wooden is an individual who had a humility but a great inner strength. And one of the things that was very apparent as you watched him coach and as you saw him involve himself with students and with so many others in the community, there was that gentleness and strength of character that did belie that resolve that he had. But, at the same time, he's someone who was able to be a real winner. And I think it was pointed out very appropriately right after his passing when Bill Walton and Kareem Abdul Jabbar stood on the floor of the court for the team that in the not-too-distant future is going to become the NBA champion, the Los Angeles Lakers, and remembered the life of Coach Wooden. And so I want to join with my colleagues in extending our thoughts and prayers to the family members and to all of the students who were able to benefit from the amazing life of Coach John Wooden.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, we were all promised, this institution and the American people were promised, back in 2006, a new direction for America. Mr. Speaker, that was, in fact, the title of a publication that then- minority leader, my California colleague, Nancy Pelosi, put forward. What did it promise? It promised a new era of transparency, disclosure and accountability. A new era of transparency, disclosure and accountability. Well, Mr. Speaker, I will inform you that exactly 47 minutes ago, at 9 a.m. Eastern time, we were handed this amendment to the rule. Now, as I look at this morning's CQ Today, I did read the quote to which my friend, the distinguished chair of the Committee on Rules referred. When asked if this was a precooked measure, she responded by saying, Are you kidding? Are you kidding me? We're Democrats. That's the quote. That's the quote that appears in this publication. Now, Mr. Speaker, as I read this quote, I am reminded of the statue that we always encourage our constituents to look at and rub the feet of as we go into Statuary Hall, and it's the statue of Will Rogers. Will Rogers, that great comedian, famously said, ``I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.'' Now, Mr. Speaker, we have observed over the last 3 days the Democratic leadership running around this institution like chickens with their heads cut off, attempting to put together some deal which, when asked if it was precooked, the Chair of the Committee on Rules said, Are you kidding me? We are Democrats. Well, Mr. Speaker, the American people get it. They are not getting the kind of transparency they were promised, and we are seeing a measure here that is being put into place which I am convinced will continue to have the deleterious effect that the other measures that have been put into place over the last several months have created. We all know that when we dealt with the serious economic downturn-- and we can point fingers at ourselves--we can point fingers all over. But we do know that as we dealt with the economic downturn, that this Congress made a decision, I think an unfortunate one, to dramatically increase spending. What is it that happened? Well, during that debate, we were all promised by the President and other leaders that if we were to pass that stimulus bill, we would ensure that the unemployment rate would not exceed 8 percent. In fact, we were told that by this time, with the implementation of the so-called economic stimulus bill, the unemployment rate would be 7.4 percent. Well, Mr. Speaker, as we all know, the unemployment rate has surged, and it is just under 10 percent. Unfortunately, we continue to have people suffering. I happen to represent the Los Angeles area in California. In my district, the unemployment rate is as high as 14.5 percent. There are parts of my State of California, the Central Valley of California, where the unemployment rate has exceeded 40 percent. Now that's after we have been promised that the implementation of all the spending bills that we have had would ensure that we would not have an unemployment rate that would exceed 8 percent, and look at what has happened. What is it that we are doing now? Well, we are looking at a multibillion dollar spending bill that will exacerbate, not ameliorate, the economic downturn, which we all want to emerge from. Now, Mr. Speaker, my good friend Dennis Prager likes to say he has now put out bumper stickers. The great writer says, The bigger the government, the smaller the individual. Mr. Speaker, we know that the bigger the government grows, the smaller the individual becomes. We have learned that because as we look at the European model and, tragically, we seem to be seeing our friends on the other side of the aisle attempting to implement a European-style entitlement society--it has failed in Europe, Mr. Speaker, and we should do everything that we can to ensure that we don't pursue that same kind of policy here. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to defeat this rule, create transparency, and let's go back to exactly what was promised.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Our friend from Columbus, Indiana, the distinguished conference chairman, said it perfectly when he talked about the challenges that families are facing across the country in trying to put together their own budgets. He also pointed out the fact that for the first time in history since the implementation of the 1974 Budget and Impoundment Act, we have seen no budget provided from Washington, D.C. Well, Mr. Speaker, it's not surprising that that has been the case. How can you put together a roadmap of where it is you are going when you have no idea where you are going? And that's really where we are today. I am happy to say that we have a wide range of very positive proposals that we have put forward. Our whip just talked about the YouCut program. There are lots of things that we need to do. Tragically, today we are dealing with very anemic job creation and economic growth, and there is something that we can do that will help deal with national security as well, and that is the challenge of destabilization of the Korean Peninsula. Mr. Speaker, if we were to have the President send to us immediately the U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement, we could implement the largest bilateral trade agreement in world history, and it would create millions of good American jobs. Please send it up now so that we can in fact get our economy back on track.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, at this time I am happy to yield 3 minutes to the coauthor of the very important issue that's going to bring back accountability to welfare, the gentleman from Roswell, Georgia (Mr. Price).

Mr. DREIER. I yield my friend an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, how much time is remaining?

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, let me first thank my friend for his very thoughtful remarks and say again how horribly we all feel about the tragedy that he and Mrs. Capito and others from his State have suffered. And once again, we totally agree with exactly what it is we are attempting to do here. With that, I am happy to yield 4 minutes to our distinguished Republican whip, who has launched the YouCut item on his Web site, Mr. Cantor.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, let me close as I began, saying first that we could have done this under unanimous consent. We all concur with the need to ensure that we take steps to ensure adequate oversight to ensure that we never, ever, ever see the kind of loss of life that we did in West Virginia or any other mine disaster. Mr. Speaker, the American people, the hundreds of millions of Americans who want us to rein in Federal spending have, unfortunately, because of the Democratic majority, they have been denied a voice here on the House floor. They're saying, Try and bring down the size and scope and reach of government. My friend, Dennis Prager, says, very correctly, the bigger the government grows, the smaller the individual becomes. And so we decided to utilize a procedure here known as defeating the previous question. And we said, Why don't we let the American people actually have a chance to be heard? And so what we did is we put five proposals out there on the Republican Whip's Web site and asked the American people to vote. Nearly 300,000 Americans cast votes, and they ended up with 81,000 votes being cast in favor of a measure that said, Gosh, should people be required to work for welfare or should we have an open-ended policy that allows them, without any kind of accountability, to see States actually rewarded for not having people have a work component in the welfare program? So, Mr. Speaker, we said with that overwhelming vote that we would use this procedure to ensure that Democrats and Republicans alike would have an opportunity to make a decision whether or not they want to go down the road towards continued spending where, again, we've had an 85 percent increase in nondefense discretionary spending since President Obama has been in office. And that's why I couldn't understand why my friend from New Jersey was arguing that we had an 8 percent increase when President Bush was there, and his answer is a tenfold increase and that's going to solve the problem. We know that we are deeper in the hole. We have more serious problems now, and the American people want us to cut Federal spending, and every Democrat and Republican will have a chance when we move to defeat the previous question to do just that. So, Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the amendment and extraneous material be included in the Record just before the vote on the previous question.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, with that, I urge my colleagues to vote for reduced spending by defeating the previous question. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I am going to do something that is somewhat unusual. I would like to, as I did in the Rules Committee yesterday, associate myself completely with everything that has been said by the distinguished chair of the Committee on Rules. As I said yesterday in the Rules Committee, it's difficult to fathom the challenge that a young person would go through, as she did, hearing that whistle and knowing that there was difficulty ahead and the threat of the loss of life. And that's the reason that we are very proud to stand here, having had an exchange with Mr. Miller--and I see Mr. Rahall here, who obviously has suffered greatly through this; Mrs. Capito is here as well--to say that we would have been extraordinarily proud, Mr. Speaker, to have done this instantaneously under a unanimous consent agreement. Mr. Kline would have agreed to that. In our exchange with Chairman Miller yesterday, we talked about the important rights of the minority, the fact that we are simply expanding authority that already does exist, but it is very important that we do this. That tragedy with the loss of those 29 lives is something that is--we have got to remain committed in a bipartisan way to ensure we have adequate oversight to ensure that it never, ever happens again. We know that a hearing has taken place in the Senate today, and serious questions have come to the forefront. And I will say, Mr. Speaker, that we were privileged to approach the majority and say that there was no reason for us to be here, no reason for us to be here, because we would have granted unanimous consent and we would not have taken this time of the House of Representatives to consider this measure. And so the only thing that I'm in disagreement with is the fact that we are taking the time of the House to do this. And so it's for that reason, Mr. Speaker, that I'm going to move to defeat the previous question. I'm going to move to defeat the previous question, not so that we, in any way, would undermine this very important authority that the Committee on Education and Labor is going to have, but to enhance this and get us back to an issue which I think is very near and dear to the American people since we've all agreed that this kind of authority, Democrats and Republicans alike, is essential. We believe that if we can defeat the previous question, we will have the opportunity to take on the issue of deficit spending, which has been incredibly painful all the way around. Just today, when I last looked earlier today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down over 350 points. I saw it had come back a little. But we are dealing with at least a 3-month low on the Dow now. And then we saw the numbers this morning on the dramatic increase in the jobless claims, 417,000. We are going through difficult times. We all know that. And it is essential that we do everything in our power to rein in massive Federal spending, which we believe, and I believe the American people by and large believe, has exacerbated rather than ameliorated the economic challenges that we're facing. Americans are tired of the reckless spending, and they're outraged, Mr. Speaker, by the lack of accountability, and deeply concerned about the consequences of our fledgling economic recovery, now and for future generations as well. After months and months of countless phone calls, emails, letters, town hall meetings, the American people are asking themselves, Why won't Washington listen? Why is our demand for fiscal responsibility not getting through? Why is the majority refusing, for the first time in modern Congressional history, to not even consider a budget? My answer to them is that some of us, Mr. Speaker, some of us are getting the message from the American people very loudly and clearly. The Democratic majority might refuse to listen, but Republicans are serious about the issue of reining in spending. Though we've been barred by the majority from making significant reforms, we're using every tool at our disposal to force some accountability into the spending process. One such effort is what we are calling the YouCut project, Y-O-U-C-U- T, which was launched last week on the Republican whip's Web site. Americans had the opportunity to voice their opinion on five specific spending cuts, and nearly 300,000 votes were cast, people making their thoughts known. Nearly 300,000. The proposed cuts, among those five, that drew the most votes was a welfare program that was expanded in the so-called economic stimulus bill without including any requirements that able-bodied recipients return to work. It was a concept that came forward by our friends, Messrs. Price and Jordan, who've worked long and hard on this. Now, Mr. Speaker, common sense dictates that an era of fiscal crisis is no time for creating an open-ended welfare program. Cutting this program will save taxpayers $2.5 billion. And today, we're going to hold the Democratic majority's feet to the fire and demand a vote on this spending cut. Again, Mr. Speaker, let me say that today, when we vote on the previous question, members of both political parties will have the opportunity to state very clearly whether they are in the camp of fiscal discipline, reining in the size and scope and reach of the Federal Government, or continuing down the path of reckless spending. Now, Mr. Speaker, we are going to continue this YouCut program in the weeks ahead. Every single week Americans will have the opportunity to vote for the spending cut that they'd like to see most, and every week Republicans will demand a vote on the winning cut. Can we eliminate the deficit in one fell swoop? Absolutely not. Everybody knows that we can't do that. Anyone who's ever had to take responsibility for a budget knows that no magic wand will fix the problem. It takes very hard choices, one cut at a time. But with discipline and perseverance, we can restore fiscal accountability here in Washington. The Democratic majority has made it clear that, left to their own devices, they will continue to spend our Nation into insolvency. And we've seen a projection that just came out: the notion of our national debt being 110 percent of our Nation's gross domestic product within the next 5 years, extraordinarily troubling, based on the path that we're on today. They've put up every conceivable roadblock so far, Mr. Speaker, to accountability, but they're not going to be able to sidestep today's vote. We're ensuring that 300,000 American voices are being heard. Mr. Speaker, anyone who cares about spending in Washington will have the opportunity to see how their Representative voted, and they'll continue to have that opportunity week after week as the YouCut program goes forward. Now, there are a number of tactics that can be employed to prevent fiscal accountability, and the Democratic majority has tried them all. But ultimately, Mr. Speaker, the will of the American people will find a way around the roadblocks and their voices will be heard. We are determined to make sure that the voices of the American people are heard here on the floor of the people's House. So, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so that Members of this body will have the chance to take on the issue of fiscal discipline and accountability and support the Price-Jordan measure, which will finally bring us the kind of responsibility we need to our Nation's welfare program. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, at this time I am happy to yield 1 minute to my good friend from Dallas, Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Mr. DREIER. I agree with the gentleman that they increased 8 percent during the Bush administration, but they have increased 85 percent in nondefense discretionary spending in the Obama administration.

Mr. DREIER. Correct. I agree with the gentleman.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, let me thank my friend from California (Mr. George Miller) for his thoughtful remarks. At this time, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Charleston, West Virginia, who clearly has suffered greatly through this extraordinary tragedy, Mrs. Capito.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, at this time I am happy to yield 2 minutes to the coauthor of the amendment who's joined Mr. Price in bringing about welfare accountability, the gentleman from Urbana, Ohio (Mr. Jordan).