Virginia Foxx

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. It's time for our colleagues to accept accountability. They've been in the majority for 3 years but they continue to blame George Bush in the same breath that they accuse me of being partisan. Since the Democrats regained the majority in the House, I have heard a number of Members come down to the floor and quote Supreme Court Justice Brandeis, saying, ``Sunlight is said to be the best disinfectant.'' That quote is quite fitting today, considering that as we speak the majority has been drafting, behind closed doors, no sunshine in sight, health care legislation that will affect every American. What is going on behind these closed doors? We really do not know. We don't even know who is at the table. The American people deserve to know what is going on behind closed doors. We need to bring in the sunlight to a process that is shrouded with secrecy. That's why I, along with a bipartisan group of 171 other Members, have cosponsored H. Res. 847, a resolution by my friend and colleague Representative Buchanan, that expresses the sense of the House of Representatives that any meetings held to determine the final content of sweeping health care legislation be held in public view and not behind closed doors. In order to help bring sunshine to a process that the majority continues to hide from public view, I will be asking for a ``no'' vote on the previous question so that we can amend this rule and allow the House to consider the Buchanan transparency resolution. This vote will give Members of the majority the chance to live up to their promise, as Speaker Pelosi said, ``to lead the most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in history.'' I know that Members are concerned that this motion may jeopardize consideration of the bill under consideration today, but I want to make clear: The motion I'm making provides for separate consideration of the transparency resolution within 3 days so we can vote on the bill before us today, and then, once we are done, consider H. Res. 847. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment and extraneous materials immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Well, thank you, Mr. Garrett. I appreciate your taking the lead in organizing this Special Order tonight to give us an opportunity to talk about the health care bill that has been proposed by President Obama and Speaker Pelosi. It has certainly gotten a good bit of news in the last few months. In the news that I watch on a regular basis, particularly in the last few days, we have heard a lot about the health care bill and, as you indicated, about the impact or the possible impact on the election that is being held in Massachusetts today to fill a vacant Senate seat. I think it is very important that we continue this debate, even though there may not be many people watching this, because generally people who are watching C-SPAN, I think, are very interested in what is going on politically in the country, and probably most people are watching what is happening with the outcome of the election in Massachusetts. It has been about 45 minutes now since the polls closed, and I know, when I was watching, just before I came to the floor, the comment was made that it probably won't take long to get the results of the election as Massachusetts is a rather small State, and they have good reporting mechanisms. So we will probably hear, and I think, for months, will continue to debate whether this very, very ill-advised bill that has been proposed has had an impact. I speak often to groups, school groups, and I always like to talk about the Constitution because it is so important to our country and to why we are the country that we are. No other country in the world has had such an endearing and enduring Constitution as we have had. If you type out the Constitution on 8\1/2\-by-11 paper, double spaced, like you would a term paper, it only turns out to be about 18 pages long. It's rather short as constitutions go. Many countries have constitutions that are thousands and thousands of pages. I think one of the geniuses of our Founders was that they were able to write a very short Constitution that has stood us in good stead for over 200 years, and it continues to stand us in good stead. One of the things I always point out to the students when I talk to them is the first three words of the Constitution. I wish I had a poster, but I don't. Even in the original document, these three words were written larger than the other words: ``We the People.'' The Founders wanted the people of this country to be in charge of our government. They knew about the tyranny of a king, and they knew about the tyranny of a parliament. They never wanted those tyrannies to be visited upon the American people again, so they wrote a preamble that started that way: ``We the People of the United States.'' That's what we need to focus on here in the Congress all the time. I agree with my distinguished colleague from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett), which is that, every time we vote, we should ask ourselves: Is my vote going to be a vote that supports the Constitution as I swore an oath to do? I think that is very, very important. I also think that the 10th Amendment to the Constitution doesn't get nearly the kind of attention that it deserves. The First Amendment gets a tremendous amount of attention, as it should; but all of our amendments are extremely important, and I think it's worthy to point out that in the over 200 years since the Constitution was adopted that we have only had 27 amendments to the Constitution, and we haven't needed a lot of amendments to the Constitution. We've had opportunities to adopt other amendments, and we haven't done so. I want to point out the 10th Amendment and read it, because I think, again, it's so important to this discussion that we're having on why the proposed health care bill is unconstitutional. The 10th Amendment says, ``The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.'' The Founders did enumerate certain things that the House should do, that the Senate should do, that the President should do, and those things that are not enumerated by the Constitution are left to the people and are left to the States. Nowhere in the Constitution do we read the words: The government shall provide for health care. Nowhere. In fact, the words ``health care'' are nowhere in the Constitution. In fact, the Constitution says in the preamble that the people are ``to provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare.'' Well, the main job of the Federal Government is to provide for the common defense. Unfortunately, we have gotten far, far away from that notion. Most of the things that have been done by the Federal Government which are unconstitutional, in my opinion, have been done for good reasons. They're not malevolent reasons, but they're wrong. We should not be funding education, for example, and some of us who are here tonight have talked about that in the past. We certainly, I don't think, should be mandating that individuals in this country purchase health insurance on penalty of being put in prison. It is ridiculous that we have people contemplating that in this country. It is a tremendous overreach of power. I want to point out something that my good colleague has pointed out, which is the issue of our being penalized for the absence of something as opposed to actions. Not buying health insurance will get a citizen in trouble in this country. Never before has that happened. I want to point out something that the President has said and that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are pushing this terrible bill have said. They said, Oh, when the American people understand what's in this bill, then they will like it. Well, that in itself, to me, is a condemnation of the bill. The bill that has been voted on in the Senate they didn't have a chance to read, and what's being negotiated now between the House and the Senate is being done behind closed doors by a very small group of people--all in secret. Well, if the bill were put out there now, the American people could decide: Do they like the bill or not like the bill? They're saying, from what they know and from what we know and from what had been proposed in the bills in the House, we know that the bills have bad elements in them, and that's what the American people are reacting to-- the elements that we know which are bad. The additional sad situation that we face is that there is a lot that has been agreed to by four or five or six people that nobody knows anything about. That is not the way to operate in a republic. That is not the way this Congress should be operating nor should our President be a part of that. We have ample evidence from good constitutional scholars that this is not good. [From the Wall Street Journal, Jan. 2, 2010] Why the Health-Care Bills Are Unconstitutional If the government can mandate the purchase of insurance, it can do anything (By Orrin G. Hatch, J. Kenneth Blackwell and Kenneth A. Klukowski) President Obama's health-care bill is now moving toward final passage. The policy issues may be coming to an end, but the legal issues are certain to continue because key provisions of this dangerous legislation are unconstitutional. Legally speaking, this legislation creates a target-rich environment. We will focus on three of its more glaring constitutional defects. First, the Constitution does not give Congress the power to require that Americans purchase health insurance. Congress must be able to point to at least one of its powers listed in the Constitution as the basis of any legislation it passes. None of those powers justifies the individual insurance mandate. Congress's powers to tax and spend do not apply because the mandate neither taxes nor spends. The only other option is Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce. Congress has many times stretched this power to the breaking point, exceeding even the expanded version of the commerce power established by the Supreme Court since the Great Depression. It is one thing, however, for Congress to regulate economic activity in which individuals choose to engage; it is another to require that individuals engage in such activity. That is not a difference in degree, but instead a difference in kind. It is a line that Congress has never crossed and the courts have never sanctioned. In fact, the Supreme Court in United States v. Lopez (1995) rejected a version of the commerce power so expansive that it would leave virtually no activities by individuals that Congress could not regulate. By requiring Americans to use their own money to purchase a particular good or service, Congress would be doing exactly what the court said it could not do. Some have argued that Congress may pass any legislation that it believes will serve the ``general welfare.'' Those words appear in Article I of the Constitution, but they do not create a free-floating power for Congress simply to go forth and legislate well. Rather, the general welfare clause identifies the purpose for which Congress may spend money. The individual mandate tells Americans how they must spend the money Congress has not taken from them and has nothing to do with congressional spending. A second constitutional defect of the Reid bill passed in the Senate involves the deals he cut to secure the votes of individual senators. Some of those deals do involve spending programs because they waive certain states' obligation to contribute to the Medicaid program. This selective spending targeted at certain states runs afoul of the general welfare clause. The welfare it serves is instead very specific and has been dubbed ``cash for cloture'' because it secured the 60 votes the majority needed to end debate and pass this legislation. A third constitutional defect in this ObamaCare legislation is its command that states establish such things as benefit exchanges, which will require state legislation and regulations. This is not a condition for receiving federal funds, which would still leave some kind of choice to the states. No, this legislation requires states to establish these exchanges or says that the Secretary of Health and Human Services will step in and do it for them. It renders states little more than subdivisions of the federal government. This violates the letter, the spirit, and the interpretation of our federal-state form of government. Some may have come to consider federalism an archaic annoyance, perhaps an amusing topic for law-school seminars but certainly not a substantive rule for structuring government. But in New York v. United States (1992) and Printz v. United States (1997), the Supreme Court struck down two laws on the grounds that the Constitution forbids the federal government from commandeering any branch of state government to administer a federal program. That is, by drafting and by deliberate design, exactly what this legislation would do. The federal government may exercise only the powers granted to it or denied to the states. The states may do everything else. This is why, for example, states may have authority to require individuals to purchase health insurance but the federal government does not. It is also the reason states may require that individuals purchase car insurance before choosing to drive a car, but the federal government may not require all individuals to purchase health insurance. This hardly exhausts the list of constitutional problems with this legislation, which would take the federal government into uncharted political and legal territory. Analysts, scholars and litigators are just beginning to examine the issues we have raised and other issues that may well lead to future litigation. America's founders intended the federal government to have limited powers and that the states have an independent sovereign place in our system of government. The Obama/Reid/ Pelosi legislation to take control of the American health- care system is the most sweeping and intrusive federal program ever devised. If the federal government can do this, then it can do anything, and the limits on government power that our liberty requires will be more myth than reality. With that, I would like to yield back to my colleague from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, seniors who express concern about the Democrat plans for a government takeover of health care in our country are correct to be concerned for at least four reasons: The Democrat health plans do not address the fundamental concern of lowering the cost of health care. Indeed, the Democrat plans do exactly the opposite by raising health care costs. Not only will the Democrat health care plans cause health care costs to go up, they will raise taxes, increase the deficit, raise premiums, and hurt the quality of health care that Americans receive. The funding mechanisms envisioned to pay the cost of Democrat health care will harm Medicare and devastate Medicare Advantage. Passing the Democrats' health care bill will harm our economy at a time when we need to focus on creating jobs. I urge seniors to tell their Democrat representatives to vote ``no'' on this job-killing, deficit-raising bill.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I would just like to point out it's not the role of Federal Government to provide jobs. It's not our job to take money from some and give to others, to try to make them dependent on the government. I urge my colleagues, Madam Speaker, to defeat the previous question so an amendment can be added to the rule. The amendment to the rule will provide for separate consideration of House Resolution 554, a resolution to require that legislation and conference reports be posted on the Internet for 72 hours prior to consideration by the House, and does not affect the bill made in order by the rule. I will insert the text of the amendment and extraneous materials immediately prior to the vote on the previous question, and I ask my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question and the rule. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, you know, I'm sitting here listening to the crocodile tears, particularly of my colleague from Maine who spoke earlier about the many people in her district who want to have jobs. And it is the very policies that she and her party have passed in this session of Congress that have caused those people to lose their jobs. What we need to do is let the American people keep their money. Their money. It is not the government's money. It is the hard-earned money of those who work in this country. And let me point out, even President Obama has said, and I'm going to quote, November 18, 2009: It is important, though, to recognize if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that can actually lead to a double dip recession. But what are we doing today? Adding to the debt, with the support of the President. Do they think the American people are not paying attention? To the contrary, more than ever, the American people are paying attention to what's going on in this Congress, and they have spoken in many, many ways. They have spoken through the polls, they have spoken through election polls in terms of where they're voting, and they're telling us every day this is not what they want this Congress to be doing. They also are aware of the fact that this Congress is breaking every promise that it made before the majority was elected. And I want to say, with apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her sonnet No. 43, how many ways can we count the promises that have been broken? Many, many ways. Too many ways to talk about today. But let me give some examples--one from Majority Leader Hoyer: ``I think that is a very important pursuit. Our committees and Members are served on both sides of the aisle by pursuing regular order. Regular order gives to everybody the opportunity to participate in the process in a fashion which will effect, in my opinion, the most consensus and best product.'' Again, a letter to Majority Leader Hoyer from members of the Democrat Blue Dog and New Democratic Caucuses which said: ``Committees must function thoroughly and inclusively, and cooperation must ensue between the parties and the Houses to ensure that our legislative tactics enable rather than impede progress. In general, we must engender an atmosphere that allows partisan games to cease and collaboration to succeed. We look forward to working with you to restore this institution.'' And what are we getting? Just the opposite. Even Speaker Pelosi endorsed the idea of regular order with her spokesperson stating at the time: ``The Speaker prefers to consider legislation in regular order and the committees of jurisdiction held hearings and markups on the current economic recovery bill. In a few cases, because of urgent financial crises, the leadership agreed to use expedited procedures.'' Lest we forget, promises Democrats made in their 2006 document entitled A New Direction for America, which promised that: ``Bills should be developed following full hearings and open subcommittee and committee markups with appropriate referrals to other committees. Members should have at least 24 hours to examine a bill prior to consideration at the subcommittee level.'' And we've pointed out it's barely been 12 hours since this bill, the bill underlying this rule, was presented. ``Bills should generally come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full and fair debate, consisting of a full amendment process that grants the minority the right to offer its alternatives, including a substitute.'' As Mr. Dreier pointed out earlier, this is the first Congress in the history of this country that has not allowed that. ``Members should have at least 24 hours to examine bill and conference report text prior to floor consideration. Rules governing for debate must be reported before 10 p.m. for a bill to be considered the following day.'' We can go on and on and on about promises broken. The President said bills would be available for 72 hours. The President promised he would post bills 5 days before signing them. He said he would read every bill line for line, and he said there would be no earmarks. He would veto bills with earmarks. This is a bill with 1,700 earmarks. Is he going to veto the bill? I doubt it. So here we have one promise after another that's broken. How can the American people believe anything that is said by the other side after this? Again, they're paying attention. I know they're paying attention, and I believe that there will be consequences to the fact that these promises have been broken. Madam Speaker, I will enter into the Record a letter written by Republicans, 173 of us, to Speaker Pelosi on December 11, 2009, asking that we not continue this practice. Washington, DC, December 11, 2009. Hon. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, The Capitol, Washington, DC. Dear Madam Speaker: We write today to express our strong opposition to reports that the Democrat Majority is considering attaching unrelated and extremely controversial proposals, such as an increase in the public debt limit, to the Fiscal Year 2010 Defense Appropriations bill. We object to maneuvers to use our troops as leverage to enact proposals that the Majority either cannot pass on their own or for which they wish to avoid directly voting on and we will oppose a Defense Appropriations package that includes such provisions. Unfortunately, there seems to be a pattern developing this year of using legislation that supports our men and women in uniform to pass other contentious proposals that are extraneous to our troops. We should supply those who risk their lives for our country with the resources they need without conditions and without using them to accomplish other legislative goals. House Republicans stand ready to help the Majority enact a defense bill that meets the needs of our troops, but we will not assist your effort to use the troops to enact an increase in our national debt limit so as to finance the irresponsible spending policies of your party. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank my colleague from Maine for yielding time. Madam Speaker, the Department of Defense appropriations bill for fiscal year 2010 is intended to provide equipment and technology for our troops. Our country's greatest treasure lies in the bravery, in the dedication, and in the ability of or servicemen and -women. These courageous individuals protect our freedoms every day. We thank them, and we thank their families for their support, dedication, and sacrifice. This bill provides top-of-the-line medical care for our troops, including funding for traumatic brain injury and psychological health. This bill provides funding for wounded, ill, and injured servicemembers as well as for cancer research. This bill provides our military with a pay increase, and it continues efforts to end the practice of stop loss--compensating troops for every month their terms of service will be involuntarily extended in 2010. This bill includes funding to provide support for our country's military families who sacrifice every day on behalf of our Nation and to whom we owe a great debt. This bill provides our troops with first-class military equipment and readiness training, ensuring they are fully prepared to successfully perform their missions. However, while this bill contains funding for several important and necessary initiatives, I would be remiss if I did not mention my disappointment in the overall funding levels when compared to the increases we have seen throughout the appropriations season this year. While the bill does receive, roughly, a 4.5 percent increase over last year, this increase is not comparable to nondefense appropriations bills we have voted on this year, which average a 12 percent increase in funding levels. As we have noted before, the Federal Government is the only unit of government to provide for our national security. These represent the wrong priorities of the Democrats, who are in charge of the Congress, and of the Obama administration. Increasing spending for domestic priorities by double digits while, in comparison, shortchanging national defense represents a dangerous, wrongheaded policy that does not rightly prioritize the security of our Nation. Thus, while I am pleased that several items in this bill are being funded in order to provide our troops with the tools, training, and medical services they need and deserve, I am disappointed that, after increasing the funding levels for domestic appropriations bills by an average of 12 percent, the Democrats in control decided only to increase our defense spending by 4.5 percent--less than half--for the coming year. This is the last appropriations bill, and that is because it has been held in order for the majority to put into it things that are not related, which I will be discussing a bit more, but the substance of the DOD appropriations bill is not the source of my concern. The extent of the closed rule before us today allows for the consideration of a variety of additional legislation that has been cobbled together without committee consideration. As my colleagues have said before, our colleagues across the aisle have gone to great lengths to shut down debate. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule so the bill can be returned to the committee and can be brought back under regular order. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I would now like to yield 3 minutes to my very distinguished colleague from Texas, one of only five CPAs in the House, Mr. Conaway.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, having a charge of misspeaking is very serious. I would like, therefore, to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake) to speak again on the rule.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I now would like to yield to a third colleague from Texas (Mr. Culberson), who has come to speak against this rule, one of the most fiscally conservative Members of the House, such time as he may consume.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, the West continues to be well-represented here. I now yield 3 minutes to our colleague from Arizona (Mr. Flake).

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I want to say thank you to our colleague from Arizona for his very valuable input on the issue of earmarks, and say that I join him in opposing all earmarks in any of our bills until we fix this broken system. And I think what we need is a study of how these specific earmarks then get awarded, since there seems to be open competition. And I would welcome the majority to institute such a study and just see how open the competition is. I now yield 3 minutes to my colleague from Iowa (Mr. King).

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I now would like to yield 3 minutes to another distinguished colleague from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I now yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from California and ranking member of the Rules Committee, Mr. Dreier. (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Ms. FOXX. I am happy to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I find it very interesting that my colleague from Maine says we find ourselves here at the end of the Bush administration. We have been in the Obama administration for a year, yet our colleagues across the aisle cannot stop hearkening back to President Bush and blaming him for everything that has happened in this country in the last year when President Bush hasn't been in office and while the Republicans have not been in control. The Democrats are in control. They have been in control of the Congress for 3 years. They actually inherited from President Bush and from the Republican- controlled Congress a very excellent economy--55 straight months of job growth. In the first month that the Democrats took over the Congress, the economy started going downhill, and we can document that very, very easily. It isn't the Bush administration that deserves the blame for the ills of the economy; it's the Democrat-controlled Congress, which began in January of 2007, which is when the economy started going sour. I want to go back to the issue at hand, which is: Why do we have closed rules? Why do we have a same-day martial law rule? Why isn't there time for us to debate the important issues that the American people want us to be debating? Why is it, as my colleague from California has pointed out, that our most important function, that being the defense of this Nation and the appropriations for that part of the country-- which can be done by no other group of people in this country as the States can't do it and the locals can't do it--is left to be done on a day when everybody is trying to get out for Christmas, and we are doing it in a rush? The Members aren't allowed to read the bill. The 72-hour rule has gone out the window. Nobody is allowed to read the bill because there is not enough time to do it. We have been operating, as my colleague said, under closed rules with bills with no amendments while we are doing things like recognizing the Grand Concourse on its 100th anniversary as the preeminent thoroughfare in the borough of the Bronx and as an important nexus of commerce and culture for the City of New York. That is how our colleagues want to spend their time, which is by dealing with issues that are not a part of our critical job here in the House of Representatives, by dealing with things that could have been done on a voice vote; but we have to have no amendments allowed and no debate time because there isn't time to do these things, according to the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and this is what we are doing. Madam Speaker, I had an opportunity this week to, once more, visit Arlington National Cemetery. It is always a sobering thing to do. I went particularly to the active duty section this time where men and women who are currently serving our country have lost their lives. It gets one's attention. There were parents and relatives there, grieving, who had recently lost loved ones. I visited the eternal flame of John Kennedy. I don't have to be reminded of his comments in his inaugural speech, ``Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.'' We are in a totally different time, as my colleague has said. We are in a time where we have people representing this country who want wealth redistribution. They want to take money from some people and give it to others. In fact, that seems to be their entire focus, spread the wealth around, take up time on frivolous issues. Don't deal with what's important, don't deal with national security, because we really don't want to talk about that. That's not what's important. But that is what is important to us. I watched the soldiers who guard the Tomb of the Unknowns, and I was given some insight into the preparation that they have for that job and how difficult it is to get it. Would that Members of Congress had a tiny little percentage of the dedication that these soldiers have for doing their jobs. They do everything with perfection. Perfection is not just the goal; it is the standard that those people live up to. We are falling far short of the standard that our military people uphold for our country. We are so fortunate that we have men and women willing to serve and have been willing to serve since the founding of this country. This Congress is falling short of the goals that they set. I support our military. I support the funding for our military and our troops, the equipment, the medical care and all that we are going to appropriate, but I don't support this martial law way of operating. I don't support the arrogance of this administration and this Congress to bring things up at the last minute and to disregard the needs of those people. To put on the bills things that are irrelevant, things they don't think they can pass any other way, what a travesty, what a shame. What a shame on this Congress that we are doing this bill at the last minute and that we are putting these things on here. We should be voting on appropriations for our military and honoring them here just before the holidays. Madam Speaker, I will ask my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this same- day rule and ``no'' on the next rule so that we could stop and debate this and not be up against a deadline for a group of our Members to go to Copenhagen, adding to the carbon problem while they are going over there to talk about it. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague yielding the time this morning. I want to say that it seems every time we come here, we have to do a little bit of correcting people's memory and their recollection of history. My colleague just said when they took over the majority, we had a $1.3 trillion deficit. I think if she will check her facts, she will see that the $1.3 trillion deficit came about as a result of the Democrats' taking over the majority. She may not have been here in 2007, but when they took over the majority, I believe that the deficit was $259 billion, and they made it $1.3 trillion this year with their Democratic President. We are here considering a same-day martial law rule. Now, I understand that there are times when we need to move quickly when we are faced with an immediate crisis. However, I think the word ``crisis'' has been overused particularly this year. We haven't had much by way of crisis this year, and yet they're trying to make it a crisis by bringing in this, again, same-day martial law rule. The Rules Committee met last night at 8:45. We didn't get the text of the bills that we're going to be debating and the rule that we're going to approve again in a few minutes, or a little while, so we've had very little time to be able to deal with these things. But we've known about this for a long, long time. We've known that the funding for the government would run out Friday night for over a month. So what have we been doing during that period of time when we should have been preparing for this day? Let me give some ideas on what we've been doing by reading out some of the bills that we've been voting on on the floor: expressing support for designation of November 29, 2009, as ``Drive Safer Sunday,'' surely something that the country could not live without, without our voting on it; expressing support for designation of the week beginning on November 9, 2009, as ``National School Psychology Week,'' another extraordinarily important issue for us to be dealing with; recognizing the 60th anniversary of the Berlin Airlift's success. Certainly I am extremely proud of the fact that Ronald Reagan helped end the Cold War by opening up Berlin. But I don't think that really needed to be done by a vote on this floor. And then the one that I really think tops the cake and will get the attention of the American people, honoring the 2,560th anniversary of the birth of Confucius and recognizing his invaluable contributions to philosophy and social and political thought. The fact that 2,560 years have passed since the birth of Confucius and we hadn't acknowledged it, I really think that could have waited a little bit longer in terms of the importance of the work that we are doing. So, here we are again doing what our colleagues across the aisle have been so good at this session, short-circuiting the legislative process so we can jam through another major spending bill without the benefit of Members or, more importantly, the citizens of this country having the opportunity to read it. This rule enables us to take up the next rule, and that rule will let the House consider more than $1 trillion in spending, all done almost in the blink of an eye if you put it in the context of the birth of Confucius. But let us not be fooled by this attempt to say that something is a crisis. The reason we are doing this on the spur of the moment is because our Speaker and several Members are going to leave today to go to Copenhagen to talk with people about climate control. And they're going to emit much, much carbon on their way to do that, which really is sort of hypocritical in terms of what the conference is all about. So we have folks talking out of both sides of their mouths here over and over and over again. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, at the close of 2009, as we look to and prepare for a new year, I'm prompted to call attention to the remarkable American people who have, once again, weathered a difficult year with dignity and toughness. Sometimes the Washington establishment forgets that the solutions to America's problems lie outside this capital city. Yes, Americans from almost every walk of life are tightening their belts and making due with less this year, but Americans continue to be an extraordinarily resourceful people who inspire me in my work every day. As we prepare to celebrate Christmas, entering in a new year, I hope we can all draw inspiration from the American people. We live in a Nation of innovators and hardworking entrepreneurs. Their resourcefulness is unlimited. The spirit of American opportunity lives and thrives among them. And let's not forget the North Carolinians who, with their characteristic generosity and work ethic, illustrate the greatness at work in America, even in seasons of considerable difficulty. I look to them as a source of inspiration and hope. People like those who call North Carolina home have always been the best hope for the preservation of our tradition of individual liberty and government by and for the people, whether in good times or bad. Mr. Speaker, Washington would do well to stop and watch, listen, and learn from everyday Americans as they go about their lives and do the things that help make our Nation great. May God continue to bless us all.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, as we approach the Christmastime, too many Americans are asking, Where are the jobs? In January, the unemployment rate was 7.6 percent. Only 10 months later, the national unemployment reached a whopping 10.2 percent, the highest level since April 1983. That means today there are 15.7 million unemployed Americans looking for work. House Republicans have an economic recovery plan that will help get Americans back to work. Our economic recovery plan will create twice the jobs at half the cost of the Democrats' failed stimulus plan. How ironic that our colleagues are coming to the floor today to talk about the need for jobs when it is their votes and the policies of this President that have killed so many jobs. It's time we started working on behalf of the American people and focus on real commonsense solutions that will help put people get back to work and let them celebrate Christmas in a wonderful way.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the Ready Mixed Concrete Company of Statesville, North Carolina, for its commitment to preserving our natural resources and the environment. The Ready Mixed Cement Company of Statesville, along with the Ready Mixed Facility in Taylorsville, North Carolina, recently received the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association's Green-Star certification for its dedication to environmental excellence. This accomplishment demonstrates how hard this company has worked to adapt its business practices to today's rapidly changing culture of sustainable business. These efforts will not only protect the environment, but will also make the Ready Mixed Concrete Company of Statesville a better competitor and employer. That means more good jobs for the people of North Carolina, which is what we need most during these difficult economic times.