Virginia Foxx

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. You're living in 1984.

Ms. FOXX. That's right. There is an organization called Humana which provides health insurance, primarily the Medicare Advantage Program, to seniors all over this country.

Ms. FOXX. Sure. And this is a program that seniors like very much. Well, where the rub comes in is suddenly the organization, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, doesn't like the fact that Humana is exercising its free speech options and educating the people that are being covered by its program and writes to them and says, You cannot do this anymore. You can't write letters to the people participating in your program. It says, ``We are instructing you to immediately discontinue all such mailings to beneficiaries and to remove any related materials directed to Medicare enrollees from your Web sites.''

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Would it be safe to say that the true measure of whether somebody wants to defund ACORN is whether he or she signs that discharge petition?

Ms. FOXX. Not whether he or she voted for the Republican motion last week.

Ms. FOXX. I wanted to point out one more way that the public could hold their Member accountable. We have heard a lot about the issue of accountability, particularly from the President, yet we have seen almost nothing in terms of real accountability measures being put out there. But as our colleague from Texas pointed out, Leader Boehner has said if the Speaker does not bring up the stand-alone bill that he has introduced, he is going to file a discharge petition. Well, getting to the point of filing a discharge petition takes a long time and, again, many people will go home and say to their constituents, well, I voted to defund ACORN, but they know full well that that provision in that bill will be dropped out in the Senate or in the conference. But, Leader Boehner has introduced H.R. 3571. It's entitled the Defund ACORN Act. If people want to know how their Member really feels about this, then they should ask that Member to sign on as a cosponsor to H.R. 3571. Then, if H.R. 3571 doesn't get taken up to vote on it on the floor, then they should sign the discharge petition. Many people have the understanding that all you have to do is have 218 people sign on to a bill and then it automatically comes up for a vote. I have had to explain that to a lot of people that it's completely in the control of the Speaker whether a bill comes to a committee or comes to the floor for a vote. I have been on lots of bills that have had over 300 people as cosponsors and the bills never come up for a vote. So I would say to any of the public who are watching us tonight, if you want to know, again, how your Member really feels about ACORN, then do that. But, of course, we understand that much of the--I don't want to call them mainstream media anymore, because I don't think they are the mainstream media. I think the three dominant networks plus one of the cable networks, many of the people who watch that, those channels, don't know anything about ACORN because those media outlets have not been talking about ACORN. So we have a real problem in this country with selective reporting of things that are transgressions by our colleagues across the aisle. I know that we have lots of data on that. We want everybody to be treated fairly, and we know that many times when there are shortcomings on the part of our colleagues that it never gets reported in the national media except for one or two newspapers or one or two TV stations or radio stations. Thankfully, more and more people are paying attention to those, so we are getting the news out. And I just wanted to point that out that if somebody is watching and they want to know if their Member is serious about doing something about ACORN and they voted for the bill the other day, then they should ask them to sign on to H.R. 3571 introduced by John Boehner, and already cosponsored by, I think, most of us, and also if a discharge petition comes up, to sign the discharge petition.

Ms. FOXX. Let me point out, again--and our colleague from Texas has a chart, and I will turn it over to him in a second--but the bill calling for an audit of the Federal Reserve, as you have indicated, Mr. Gohmert, has 290 cosponsors. That's more than enough to pass that bill. Yet Speaker Pelosi has gone very slowly on holding hearings. I hope very much that there will be that full committee hearing on Friday. I know that Chairman Frank has offered to hear the bill; and I hope that will happen, because that's what we need. It's obvious that a lot of people in this country are very concerned about the role of the Federal Reserve. We're at a stage in this country where we owe more money than we have ever owed in the history of this country. Our deficit is going to hit almost $2 trillion by the end of this month. Our long-term debt is just so large, it's almost inconceivable to think of. Our unfunded liabilities from Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and what this Congress continues to do, in the control of the Democrats, is spend, spend, spend. Almost every bill that comes up before us is something that will authorize or appropriate money. And they passed the largest budget that has ever been passed in the history of the country. It's really scary because people can't understand where this is leading. I know that Chairman Bernanke said he would not monetize debt, yet that's exactly what he's doing. The way that things are going in a circle around here, we're borrowing money from ourselves day after day after day, and it is high time that we had a very, very good audit of the Federal Reserve. And I am in very strong support of H.R. 1207, and I'd like to yield to my colleague, Judge Carter.

Ms. FOXX. Well, I would. I want to thank my two colleagues from Texas for beginning this hour, and I am glad to talk a little bit about this. I think what you're bringing up in terms of the Committee on Oversight is extremely important in terms of what it has found out. I have found that people have been a little bit fooled in the last week about actions having been taken in the Congress, and I thought I might highlight that issue a little bit. I know I heard several times on the news last week that the House has voted not to continue to fund ACORN, that the Senate has voted not to continue to fund ACORN and that Congress has voted not to continue to fund ACORN. So I think it's important that we explain exactly what happened last week because people don't have the full picture. What really happened last week was our friend over in the Senate, Senator Coburn from Oklahoma, put an amendment on the Transportation and HUD appropriations bill. That's what I understand. If I don't get this exactly straight, I hope you two will help me get it straight if my memory is not as good as I'd like it to be. He put an amendment on that bill, an appropriations bill, that said that ACORN would get no more funding through the HUD appropriations bill. What happened in the House is that we were dealing with a bill which I found extremely offensive--the bill that would do away with banks being able to make loans to students who were going to college and setting up the Department of Education as a banker for students who want to borrow money. What we did was to put an amendment on that bill to say funding would no longer go to ACORN. That bill passed with a large vote, so there are people out there thinking, Okay. Great. We're defunding ACORN. What has actually happened is the defunding of ACORN in one particular category in the Senate and the defunding of ACORN, period, out of the House. Now what has to happen is we have to have language that's exactly the same in both Houses. So what I explained to some people on the radio show that I was on was, yes, it's an easy thing for Members of the House to vote to defund ACORN. They know that bill is going to go over to the Senate. They know that it's probably not going to be in the Senate version of that bill. If the Senate were to pass a bill related to loans for college students, it would most likely be very different from the bill that passed in the House. The two bills would go to conference. In the conference, very conveniently, the section on ACORN would simply disappear. As I explain to people, that happens all the time. The folks in charge over here let something pass, knowing full well it's never going to become law. So those who thought that ACORN was going to be cut out of its continued funding from the Congress think that based on the news accounts from last week, but I think it's important that people know that that isn't the case. If they're interested in stopping funding to ACORN, what they need to do is to write their Members of Congress and say, ``I want you to vote to defund ACORN, and I want you to find a vehicle to do that,'' because we can pass lots of bills over here. Then people can go home and brag about it and say, ``I voted to defund ACORN,'' and then it never happens, and they're given credit for it, knowing full well it's never going to pass in a bill that would go to the President for his signature. So I think it's important. I also want to say that I think ACORN is a symptom of the problems with the way Congress is now operating. The Federal Government was established to provide for the defense of this Nation, and that's what we are here for. What has happened, particularly since the mid-1960s, is, I guess, many Members of Congress, to justify their being here, thought that the Federal taxpayers were providing a giant piggy bank to the Members of Congress. They thought we could take their money and could spend it any way we wanted to. We've gotten way off target. One of the reasons that ACORN can do what it has been doing for the last 15 years is that there is such inadequate oversight, because we're simply funding too many different kinds of projects. We need to pull this Congress from where it is now--funding lots of things we have no business funding--back to the essential job of the Congress, which is to focus on national defense. I know it won't be done in this session of Congress because there are too many people of a different philosophy than of the three of us, but I'm hoping that after the 2010 election that we will find more people of like mind with us who will understand the reason we have a Congress and who will say to their Members, You need to focus on national defense. If there are programs like ACORN, community organizations which need to be funded, let's let the local and State governments do that. With that, I yield back to my colleague from Texas.

Ms. FOXX. It's my understanding there is a stand-alone bill. It is up to the Speaker now to call that bill up from committee and then up for a vote; is that correct?

Ms. FOXX. Would the gentleman explain a discharge petition? I think that would be helpful.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Well, I thank you, Dr. Price, for beginning this hour and bringing an extraordinarily comprehensive and cogent discussion to the health care issue. I did hear more of our colleagues who were here in the previous hour talking about energy than health care. But I did hear them say if we were to adopt the health care proposals--and I assume that they mean H.R. 3200--that that would bring long-term economic growth to this country. And I thought that I must be living in either Never-Never Land or Wonderland or someplace other than in the United States of America and serving in the United States Congress, because having the government take over health care in this country is a formula, in my opinion, for harming economic growth in this country, not creating economic growth. I think that the American people have caught on to that. I want to say that the thing that kept running through my mind as I was listening to them--and let me say here that many folks wonder why we often are here speaking to an empty Chamber. But we're usually in our offices, listening to what's going on in the Chamber, along with about 800,000 other people in the country. So we do listen to each other, and sometimes it is very frustrating to hear what's being said, because I believe, in many cases, the American people are being misled by the comments that are being said. We don't expect to see long-term economic growth from health care. One of the best things, I think, that has happened this entire summer is that the American people have been paying closer attention to what's being proposed in the Congress. H.R. 3200 has been looked at by the public, and they understand that what we have been saying about the bill is more accurate than what our colleagues have been saying about the bill. I have read the bill. I know you have read the bill, and I want to encourage more and more Americans to read it because I don't think that the time has passed for our considering that bill. I think that, or something similar to it, is going to be dealt with on the floor of the House. But what I wish is that more Americans had paid closer attention to the bill that our colleagues call cap-and-trade, and which we call cap- and-tax, because I think if the American people had paid as much attention to that as they have to the health care bill, they would have been up in arms earlier this year. Most of them don't realize that, again, what our colleagues were saying is just the opposite of what they do in legislation. Last summer we were here talking about the problems with energy. Gas prices were skyrocketing. And as you pointed out, we stood for an all- of-the-above energy policy in this country. We want to be able to use the resources that are available to us in this country. I believe the Good Lord gave us the resources in this country to take care of our energy needs. But our colleagues on the other side of the aisle--and let's say it--the Democrats are in control of this Congress. It's very important that people understand that our colleagues who were speaking a while ago were speaking of the folks in charge who are of their party. They make it seem like they're not in control, that they can't make the things happen that they're talking about. But they are in control. Every day they make us more and more dependent on that foreign oil that they say they don't want us to be dependent on. We have seen here how they have shut down accessibility to shale and oil and the Outer Continental Shelf. Over and over and over again, they stymie every opportunity that we have to increase the sources of energy in this country.

Ms. FOXX. Well, I thought that it might be useful to throw out a few other statistics tonight. I haven't had a chance to read this entire article, but the Weekly Standard, September 21, has an interesting article in it by Fred Barnes, entitled ``An Unnecessary Operation.'' It has some very interesting statistics in it, some of which we have talked about before. I think it's important to point out, he says here in this article, that 89 percent of Americans, in a June 2008 ABC News- USA Today-Kaiser Family Foundation survey, said they were satisfied with their health care. Most Americans think that we're trying to do too much in our government. One area that they're very happy with is their health care, and I think that it's important that we point that out. As you say, there are things that do need to be done. There is no question. Republicans understand we need to make modifications in people's accessibility to health care, in its portability--those principles that you laid out earlier. We want to do that, and we have ways to do that, as you say, without it costing a dime to the American people. That's what we should be focusing on. With 89 percent of Americans being satisfied with their health care, let us make minor adjustments to the health care system. Let me point out some other statistics that, I think, are very, very important. These go against those people who decry what an awful health care system we have in this country, which really infuriates me because, again, we know that people are coming here--thousands of them. In here, I think they say 400,000 people a year come from other countries to get medical care. Let's talk a little bit about those. The two very major innovations in health care are the MRI and the CT. The statistics on this are absolutely astounding in terms of the numbers of machines. The United States has 27 MRI machines per million Americans. Canada and Britain have 6 per million. We have 27. The United States has 34 CT scanners per million. Canada has 12 per million. Britain has 8 per million. Now, we know just on the face of it, with that many fewer machines, it's going to take a lot longer to have access to those machines. Right now, American patients pay out-of-pocket expenses of 12.6 percent. It's much higher in other countries, including the countries that have government-run health care. Then we can talk a little bit about mortality. I mean, again, you've laid out the arguments for why we should make the kinds of changes you've recommended and that Republicans have recommended, but let's talk a little bit about survival rates: For all cancer, 66.3 percent of American men and 63.9 percent of American women survive. In Europe, it's only 47.3 percent of men and 55.8 percent of women who survive after 5 years. These are statistically significant numbers. Let's talk about breast cancer. There is a 90.1 percent survival rate for Americans and a 79 percent survival rate for Europeans. I mean, not only do we have the least expensive health care in this country and the most available health care in this country, but we also have much, much greater survival rates in this country. Why do we want to mess up that system by implementing what Speaker Pelosi and President Obama have recommended? That is simply going to go against the Hippocratic oath. I was thinking about that earlier. I know physicians say, above all else, they should do no harm. You know, I really think that that needs to be added to our oath when we come here and swear our allegiance to the Constitution. I think it's entirely appropriate for us to do that, but I really think we should add something like the Hippocratic oath, which says to do no harm, because what the Democrats want to do, who are in charge of this government right now--of the Congress as well as of the executive branch--is to actually bring harm to the American people. They will be violating all of those principles which you laid out earlier, and we're going to be reducing life spans and survival rates if we go to a government-run plan. It's unnecessary except that it is part of the philosophy of the liberal Left. Their idea is that the government knows best. For those of us who are conservatives and who are mostly Republicans, our idea is that it's not the government that knows best. We should leave people as free as possible, and we should operate as we have for over 200 years in our society and in our country, which is with a capitalistic operation. We have a Judeo-Christian bedrock. Our rule of law and our capitalistic system have allowed us to have the most successful society that has ever existed in the world. Yet these folks want the government to take over. They want the government to run automobile companies and to become banks for student loans. Everything should be run by the government, in their minds, while we say let's perfect the situations that we have. We can certainly improve what we do in almost every area, and we should focus on those things instead of turning upside down and reversing the things that we do well. So I want to thank you very much for leading this hour and for focusing on these two issues, energy and health care, which are so important to Americans, and for helping to set straight some of the things that our colleagues said, particularly in the previous hour, but they're things which they say almost every day. Let's call them to task on those issues. Thank you, Dr. Price, Congressman Price, for the leadership you've given to the RSC and particularly to this issue of health care.

Ms. FOXX. It is absolutely the truth. In fact, in the cap-and-trade bill, that they call it--we call it cap-and-tax--what it will do is it will make us more dependent. It stops the use of coal in this country. We have much more coal resources available to us than Saudi Arabia has oil resources, and we know that. But they seem to hate coal and want to do everything that they possibly can to diminish the use of it. There are no plans for creating nuclear energy, increased nuclear energy. Yet we know if we're going to maintain our standard of living in this country, we need to be building in the next 30 years 30 to 50 nuclear power plants. We also know that since World War II, France has gotten 85 percent of their electricity from nuclear power, and they have never had one tiny problem as a result of that. But the radical environmentalists in this country seem determined to create blackouts in this country. They don't want coal. They don't want us to drill for oil. They don't want nuclear. They're even protesting now putting in solar panels out in the Mojave Desert. They don't want wind farms. Solar and wind are not the solutions to our energy needs, and we know that. President Obama said he would double the use of alternative energies, meaning wind and solar, and yet President Bush did that in the last 18 months of his administration. We went from 1.5 percent to 3 percent. Well, President Bush did that in 18 months. President Obama has said that he would double it during his first term. Well, going from 3 percent to 6 percent, given how the technology is growing, isn't a very big leap. But we also know that we can only absorb in our current electric grid only 10 percent of solar and wind. Beyond 10 percent we put our wonderful system of energy in great jeopardy because we simply don't have the grid to handle it, and we can handle up to 10 percent, as I understand it from listening to the experts. But even that, for us to absorb 10 percent of wind and solar, which are undependable, and that's the main reason we can't absorb more than 10 percent, would take $3 trillion to redo our grid. They never say anything about that cost. And to be able to put in cap-and-tax would be enormously expensive to the average American consumer. We know that it's probably going to increase energy costs between $1,700 and $3,000 for the average American family. They never mention that when they're talking about what they want to do in terms of alternative energy. I think it's very important, again, that we call the attention of the American people to that bill. I'm sorry I forgot to write down the number of the bill, but if people, again, would pay some attention to that bill and read it, as they have H.R. 3200, I think they'd find that we are telling the truth about it and that rather than expanding domestic energy sources, it's going to contract domestic energy sources because of all the rules and regulations and the costs of them. I think it's a cruel hoax being put out to the American people along with what they have been saying about health care also. I want to switch back to that subject because you are an expert in both of these areas, but you're really such an expert in the health care area. I want to take it down, though, to, I think, a conversation that everybody can understand. When I was growing up in western North Carolina in the 1950s, my family was extraordinarily poor. I mean dirt poor, as we used to say. And yet we could afford health care. I had chronic asthma and allergies and often had to get health care treatment, and my family could pay for that. The costs were very low. And I began to think a few years ago, now, what has happened since I was a child living out in the country, a very rural area, the poorest county in North Carolina, and yet we had a small hospital, we had doctors there who would treat us, and we could pay cash and meet our obligations? What has happened since that time in the mid 1960s Medicare was created, Medicaid was created? Government policies encouraged companies to provide health insurance for their employees because they could tax deduct it but individuals could not. So the rules changed dramatically. I know also that we have wonderful technology. We have many, many more specialists in our country, and our health care has gotten better and better in this country. And I get really furious when I hear these statistics from our colleagues that want to say that we are 35th in the level of health care that we provide. Well, why is it that everybody comes to our country to get health care and why is it that our average lifespan is now 80 years old and people are living such vibrant lives right up almost until death, most people are? It's because we have created government-run health care in Medicare and Medicaid and in the other areas that you talked about and third-party payer. We have taken away the sense of responsibility from Americans for how much things cost. And everybody thinks, well, if insurance is going to pay for it, it's not costing me anything. I'll utilize it to the full. But I make the analogy we all have to buy car insurance because as we drive our cars, there is the chance we will harm someone else, so we all have to have liability insurance. But our car insurance does not pay to change our oil or put new tires on the car, and yet we have come to accept that. The same thing with homeowner's insurance. We buy homeowner's insurance because it's the practical thing to do. But if our roof gets a leak in it, we don't turn that in to the insurance company. We fix the roof because we know if we don't fix the roof, pretty soon the ceiling is going to be leaking, then the floor is going to be damaged. So we assume that responsibility for our cars and our homes, and yet over the years, this insidious growth of government and third-party payer through insurance have taken away the sense of responsibility that we have for taking care of our own bodies and taking care of our own health. And the more we involve the government, the worse it's going to be. We don't need government-run health care in this country. We need to follow the principles that you outlined, and I think you did a beautiful job. The other thing I want to say is we keep hearing that Republicans have no alternatives. Our alternatives fit exactly the principles that you outlined, and I just want to mention a couple of bills here. H.R. 2520, the Patient's Choice Act by Mr. Ryan from Wisconsin. The Patient's Choice Act would transform health care in America by strengthening the relationship between the patient and the doctor by using the forces of choice and competition rather than rationing and restrictions. It seeks to ensure universal affordable health care for all Americans. And then there's the bill that you introduced, which you, I don't think, have spoken of, but it's H.R. 3400, and we want to make sure people understand the difference: The Empowering Patients First Act to increase patients' control over their health care decisions by offering more choices and the highest quality available. We have comprehensive bills out there that do what needs to be done, but the Speaker refuses to pay attention to those, as you said, and the President refuses to pay attention to them. They are determined to control every aspect of our lives, and taking over health care gives them the wonderful opportunity to do that. I want to thank you again for leading this hour tonight and getting us on the right track on these issues.

Ms. FOXX. Absolutely.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I now yield such time as he may consume to our distinguished colleague from California (Mr. Dreier), the ranking member of the Rules Committee. (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. Madam Speaker, as proposed in President Obama's FY 2010 budget, H.R. 3221 eliminates the FFEL student loan program that has been the overwhelming choice of students and families for more than 40 years, replacing it with a government-run program. While Democrats continue to use government takeovers as a panacea to all economic problems, converting all student loans to government subsidized loans is just another way that Democrats are killing jobs, increasing government intrusion, and eroding the rights of the consumer. I will urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule and ``no'' on the underlying bill. Madam Speaker, having no additional speakers on our side of the aisle, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I know that sometimes we are all given to a little hyperbole here on the floor, but the comment from my distinguished colleague from California that this would be absolutely no cost to taxpayers, if there is anybody listening to this who believes that, I am going to find some swamp land in New Mexico to sell them. We know that the estimates are that 40,000 jobs are going to be lost in the private sector as a result of this bill. So tell me, who is going to be administering this program? Right now the Direct Loan Program covers 20 percent of the loans that are given out. So is the Department of Education going to absorb this workload? I doubt that. Are they not going to ask for more help to be able to administer the other 80 percent? In terms of debts, we keep hearing about people who are graduating from college with so much debt. Where is the issue of personal responsibility that we keep hearing so much about from the President. Debt is a personal responsibility. There is no reason for anybody in this country to graduate from college with $50,000 worth of debt. And it is pretty good business for the government to be in because we can borrow money cheaper than the private sector can: that sounds like the argument that established Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And we do know where that has led us. Last but not least, I guess it is going to be hundreds of years before our colleagues stop blaming every ill in this country on the Bush-Cheney administration. I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kline), the ranking member of the Education Committee.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I think I may be the only Member of Congress who has been a community college president. So I've had a good bit of experience. I was a professor and an assistant dean at a university. I served on a school board for 12 years. So I have extensive experience in the field of education. I am a product of public education. I grew up extraordinarily poor. I doubt there is anybody in the Congress who grew up as poor as I did. And I know that much of the success that I have had has been the result of the opportunities I had in education. I give credit to the people who taught me and who guided me throughout my educational career. It took me 7 years to get my undergraduate degree, but I graduated without a dime of debt because I worked and went to school. I know that it is possible to do that, and I know that a person does not have to borrow $50,000 a year to get an education in this country. We are blessed that we have extraordinarily high-quality, low-cost education programs all across this country. We have excellent community colleges. We have excellent public education, higher education, and we have excellent private education. We have more choice in this country than any other place in the world. As I said, I have extensive background in this area. As a community college president, I had the opportunity to work with the Workforce Investment Program. As a member of the State legislature, I had an opportunity to understand these programs and work with them at some length. So I am not unfamiliar with this area. What I see when I read this bill, particularly as it talks about giving money to community colleges, is basically setting up a welfare program for States and for community colleges. We already have the kind of accountability, I believe, that we need in community colleges in this country. Yesterday, again, my distinguished colleague from California said that the bill has, for the first time ever, accountability in it. I have read this bill. There is no accountability in here. There are benchmarks established somewhere out in the future. They're not even discussed in the bill. There is talk about serving underserved groups of people. There is really no accountability in here. And I'm wondering if our colleagues are going to consider men an underserved group. It's my understanding--and, again, I'm not up to date on the literature--that approximately 65 percent of the people now in higher education are women. So women have certainly found the opportunities there. I have a great number of concerns about this bill, not just what it's going to do to the student loan programs but to the other areas. It's going to get into elementary education, preschool education. We just don't need the Federal Government injecting itself here. The bill is going to limit choices for parents and students seeking educational loans and I think decrease the quality of service historically provided by private lenders. In 2007-2008, the FFEL program served more than 6.4 million students and parents at 5,000 postsecondary institutions, lending a total of $55.3 billion or 78 percent of all needed Federal student loans. In general, postsecondary institutions have preferred to provide their student loans through the private FFEL program because of its ability to provide students high-quality customer service, education outreach, and loan default prevention. Again, what this is, in my opinion, is another takeover by the Federal Government of a segment of our society that we don't need taken over. I would like to quote from an article from The Weekly Standard entitled, Need a Student Loan? Boy, Does Uncle Sam Have a Deal for You: ``For whatever else the monopoly in direct lending accomplishes, it will greatly expand the number of young people who find themselves entangled with, and ultimately beholden to, the vast system of rewards and rebukes that the Federal Government has at hand. More than 65 percent of college students borrow money to go to college. That's a lot of guinea pigs. ``We already have a foreshadowing of possibilities. Congressmen are tinkerers, and they have been tinkering with federally backed loans for years, hoping to push borrowers into doing things that Congressmen find pleasing. The most interesting of their ideas was signed into law by President Bush. This shouldn't be a surprise, since by his second term Bush had proved a pretty ambitious tinkerer himself. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007--such big titles you have, grandma!--was designed to let college students know what they should do once they got out of school. ``Student borrowers can have their Federal loans forgiven after 25 years, on the condition that they make a single minimum payment every 360 days. This is already a significant inducement to acquire a Federal rather than a private loan. But the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program goes a step further. You can have your loan forgiven after only 10 years, vastly reducing the total amount of money you pay for your college education--to below $5,000 in some cases--on three conditions. Your loan has to be handled directly by the government, with no contamination from private lenders; you have to meet a schedule of monthly minimum payments; and upon graduation, you have to get the right kind of job. ``The right kind of job turns out to be what's loosely called ``public service.'' In common discourse, public service is already an elastic term, used mostly as a form of self-flattery, but seldom has the euphemism been stretched quite as far as it was in Bush's bill. Work for the government, any government--whether as an actuary, a diplomat, or a teacher; a social worker, a fighter pilot, or a forklift driver--and you qualify for the loan forgiveness. You qualify, too, if you take a job with any 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization: the Wilderness Society, U.S. Public Interest Group, the Rainbow Coalition, the Transgender Law and Policy Institute, even, theoretically, the Heritage Foundation. It doesn't matter if you're an agitator, lawyer, lobbyist, congressional aide, or pavement-pounder hectoring passersby into signing petitions for Greenpeace. The important thing is, you can't be helping anyone turn a profit.'' Madam Speaker, this bill is another government takeover of parts of our lives, and this rule should be voted down along with the bill. [From the Weekly Standard, Aug. 3, 2009] Need a Student Loan? (By Andrew Ferguson) The House Committee on Education and Labor is having a busy summer. (Everybody in Washington is having a busy summer!) Earlier this month, for example, one of its essential subunits--the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education and Healthy Families and Communities, or SECESEHFC--held lengthy hearings to determine new ways the United States Congress might accomplish one of its many important goals: the ``Prevention of Bullying.'' The subcommittee chairman, a congressman named Kildee, from Michigan, pointed out that last year, fully 75 percent of schools in the United States had reported an incident of bullying or worse. ``One incident is one too many,'' Kildee said, thoughtfully if not originally. ``We must do something immediately to address this widespread problem.'' With the ``prevention of bullying'' safely in the solution pipeline, the committee went on to do something immediately to address another widesperead problem. Apparently college students are getting private loans to fund their education. Last week the committee approved a bill that will put an end to all that. The committee's vote accelerates a process that was begun under President Clinton. In 1994, Congress approved his idea of a Direct Lending Program for students who needed to borrow money to go to college. Before then the government had merely guaranteed student loans, which were originated and serviced by private banks selected by the government. The guarantee ensured that the ``private'' loans made huge profits for the banks, regardless of interest rates or default rates. Guaranteed loans are a textbook example of crony capitalism or (if you prefer) corporate socialism: The government assumes all the risk while doling out contracts to favored businesses, who then reap the profits. With student loans, the lender gets preening rights in the bargain, marketing itself as a Merchant of Dreams, a benefactor of America's youth, a sweet-tempered Mr. Jaggers to a nation of eager Pips. In truth, the only people who like the system of guaranteed loans are the student loan industry--now handling more then $90 billion a year--and the congressmen whose districts contain large numbers of people who work in the student loan industry. Direct lending eliminates these unctuous middlemen by encouraging students to borrow money directly from the federal government. The program semi-satisfies libertarians, who dislike cronyism, and thrills liberals, who believe the noble goal of universal college education should be uncorrepted by the yuckiness of money making. Liberal backers of direct lending believe, in effect, that there's room for only one merchant of Dreams around here, and it better be the federal government. Moreover, direct lending saves the government money--no really, it does--by reducing fees and other handling costs, savings which can then be passed on to the poor borrowers, though they never are. The bill that passed out of committee last week completes the triumph of Clinton's program. The grandly titled Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009 does away with the federal guarantee for student loans and brings them all under the care of Congress and fhe federal Department of Education, saving (say the committee's accountants) nearly $10 billion a year. The committee plans to rechannel more than half those savings to purposes other than financing higher education. But for a college student trying to make tuition, the most dramatic consequence is that federal direct lending will soon be the only kind of lending there is. Washington will be the lender of first and last resort. Some students--or more likely, their parents--still take out private bank loans with no federal guarantees. This accounts for about 14 percent of the student loan market. But it's unclear how long that corner of the market can last, as the federal government slowly crowds out truly private lenders by offering customers lower interest rates, greater discounts, and easier eligibility rules. Most likely the private lenders will abandon the field altogether, and the last chance to build a genuinely competitive market in college loans will be lost. Few will weep over that vanished opportunity--until, perhaps, they see what Congress does with the new power that has fallen into its lap. For whatever else the monopoly in direct lending accomplishes, it will greatly expand the number of young people who find themselves entangled with, and ultimately beholden to, the vast system of rewards and rebukes that the federal government has at hand. More than 65 percent of college students borrow money to go to college. That's a lot of guinea pigs. We already have a foreshadowing of the possibilities. Congressmen are tinkerers, and they have been tinkering with federally backed student loans for years, hoping to push borrowers into doing things that congressmen find pleasing. The most interesting of their ideas was signed into law by President Bush. This shouldn't be a surprise, since by his second term Bush had proved a pretty ambitious tinkerer himself. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007--such big titles you have, grandma!--was designed to let college students know what they should do once they got out of school. Student borrowers can have their federal loans forgiven after 25 years, on the condition that they make a single minimum payment every 360 days. This is already a significant inducement to acquire a federal rather than a private loan. But the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program goes a step further: You can have your loan forgiven after only 10 years, vastly reducing the total amount of money you pay for your college education--to below $5,000 in some cases--on three conditions. Your loan has to be handled directly by the government, with no contamination from private lenders; you have to meet a schedule of monthly minimum payments; and upon graduation you have to get the right kind of job. The right kind of job turns out to be what's loosely called ``public service.'' In common discourse public service is already an elastic term, used mostly as a form of self- flattery, but seldom has the euphemism been stretched quite so far as it was in Bush's bill. Work for the government, any government--whether as an actuary, a diplomat, or a teacher; a social worker, a fighter pilot, or a forklift driver--and you qualify for the loan forgiveness. You qualify, too, if you take a job with any 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization: the Wilderness Society, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, the Rainbow Coalition, the Transgender Law and Policy Institute, even, theoretically, the Heritage Foundation. It doesn't matter if you're an agitator, lawyer, lobbyist, congressional aide, or a pavement-pounder hectoring passersby into signing petitions for Greenpeace. The important thing is, you can't be helping anyone turn a profit. The first loans won't be forgiven till 2017, so there's no telling yet how many people are taking advantage of the program or how much it will cost. But it's clearly designed to cast a very wide net. Indeed, its definition of public service is so broad that only a certain kind of graduate would be denied this splendid perk of an almost-free education: the idiot who went to work in the world of buying, selling, inventing, making, and producing. Though Bush couldn't have known it, his program anticipated the age that dawned this January. It fits the ambitions and tastes of the Obama era, especially as summarized on several occasions by the first lady. She and her husband are perhaps the most famous student-loan borrowers in history. She speaks often of the torment of living under the debt load they had accumulated in college (Princeton, Columbia) and law school (Harvard). In remarks first reported by Byron York in National Review, in February 2008, she was particularly graphic. Thanks to their student loans, the Obamas found themselves ``struggling to figure out how we would save for our kids.'' What placed them in this position, Mrs. Obama said, was their decision to ``move out of the moneymaking industry''-- both had worked in corporate law--``into the helping industry.'' Again, the term ``helping'' is loosely defined: After leaving their law firms, he went to work for the Illinois state senate, she to Chicago city government and then a nonprofit hospital. ``We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we're asking young people to do,'' she said. Recently she expanded on the theme. ``I went from college to law school to a big old fancy law firm,'' she told a group of Americorps workers, ``where I was making more money than both of my parents combined.'' But then came a revelation. ``I had to ask myself whether, if I died tomorrow, would I want this to be my legacy, working in a corporate firm, working for big companies? And when I asked myself the question, the resounding answer was, absolutely not.'' How great their struggles were, and to what extent the struggles were aggravated by college-loan payments, are open questions. From the time they left their money-making days behind, according to tax returns, the Obamas never had a combined yearly gross adjusted income of less than $207,000. Usually it was much more. (During those years in the helping industry, the Obamas donated 0.9 percent of their income to charity, presumably because, as the old saying goes, ``we gave at the office.'') By 2005, Mrs. Obama alone was making $315,000 a year as an industrial helper, directing ``community affairs'' at her hospital. Except for the bad timing, she could have had her loan debt scrubbed by President Bush's program. One justification for the program is that people in the helping industry need the financial help, because of their low pay. But most people would consider the Obamas' income pretty good money. It turns out that public service, even strictly defined, doesn't necessarily require financial sacrifice. Neal McCluskey and Chris Edwards, of the libertarian Cato Institute (one of those public-serving nonprofits), have tried to show that government work, including public school teaching, compares favorably with work in the private sector, whether you count wages, benefits, or both. Using data from 2004, Edwards found that the average federal worker earned an average of 56 percent more than the average employee in the real economy. So if public servants don't need their loans forgiven any more than do debtors in the private sector, what's the point of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program? Why provide an incentive for graduates to steer clear of the private workforce? Mrs. Obama's remarks capture the spirit behind the program. The implication isn't merely that nonprofit jobs are admirable. It's that they're always and everywhere more admirable than jobs in the world of commerce. The logic closes like a pincer: The only loans available to students will be from the government; and the only way to get the most favorable terms on the loans will be to do what the lender likes. Of course, you don't have to work for Greenpeace or Amnesty International or AmeriCorps. But if you don't, you'll pay every penny of your student loan, plus interest, while your friends who made the right decision won't have to do that. No one's making anyone do anything. It's not a threat, it's a nudge. It's not an ultimatum, it's a suggestion. And it's certainly not bullying. Bullying is about to be made illegal. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I want to say that I appreciate the fact that we did have several amendments made in order by the Rules Committee, and we're very grateful for that because it gives us an opportunity to debate those amendments on the floor. And we have certainly talked a lot about that in the past, especially with the appropriations process. But I want to say that we were very disappointed that, given the financial situation in our country and the concern that people have that's being expressed every day by our constituents over the fact that we continue to have massive job losses in this country, despite the fact that the President promised with the passage of the stimulus bill that we would not go above an 8 percent unemployment rate, that ever since the President came into office, job losses have skyrocketed, and the fact that our deficit is the largest that it's ever been in the history of this country. There were two amendments that we think we should have had made in order so that we could discuss the financial situation and the impact that this bill, the underlying bill is going to have. One of those amendments, by Congressman Tom Price of Georgia, provided that the act would fail to take effect if the Secretary of Education, in consultation with the Secretaries of Labor and the Treasury--all of those positions, of course, controlled by the President--would determine that the provisions of section 201, which would end the FFEL program, will result in more than 5,000 job losses. We are very concerned that this bill is going to increase job losses. Furthermore, the amendment by the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Roskam) would have prohibited using Federal funds to carry out titles 3 through 5 of H.R. 3221 until the national deficit is under $1 trillion. We believe that in a time, again, when our economy is suffering tremendously from actions--wrong actions taken and appropriate actions not taken--that we should not be adding to the problems of our citizens by increasing unemployment and increasing the deficit. So I want to express our concern that those amendments were not made in order, but express my appreciation for those that were made in order, including one from me. With that, I reserve the balance of my time, Madam Speaker.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, during a time of high unemployment, Democrats in Washington propose a government takeover of health care that will lead to even more job losses in a weaker economy. For months, the American people have looked to Washington for policies that will do no harm to our economy and help put workers back to work. Unfortunately, all we have seen from the President and Democrat-led Congress are record spending, record deficits and record debt. The American people are looking for real solutions to the challenges we face, not another excuse to spend money and increase the reach of Big Government. Republicans have real solutions, but the people in charge of Congress and the President are ignoring them. It's time for the President and the Democrat-controlled Congress to start over on health care, work to get our economy back on track and accept real solutions.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I am encouraged by the latest movement towards normalization of relations between the Republic of Turkey and the Republic of Armenia. On August 31, 2009, the Foreign Ministers of Turkey, Armenia and Switzerland sent out a joint press release which was the latest significant step down the path to establishing diplomatic relations between Turkey and Armenia. The countries have completed and initialed two protocols which will, when they enter into force, provide a framework for the normalization of the bilateral relations. Moreover, I am encouraged that the parties have also included a timetable for implementation of the agreement which is an added confidence building measure for both sides. The citizens of Turkey and Armenia can now see a positive light at the end of the tunnel and we should do what we can to help them achieve their common goals. This is a significant step in the right direction for the region and the world at large. The United States should continue to encourage and support the efforts of Turkey and Armenia, with the good offices of Switzerland, to build a productive and stable bilateral relationship and thereby enhance stability throughout the region.

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. I have an amendment at the desk, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the Rules Committee for making my amendment in order and am glad to be here to speak on this bill. First I want to say that my whole life was spent in education. I was president of a community college. I spent 12 years on a school board. I taught and was an assistant dean at Appalachian State University, so I was an administrator there. I was the director of a TRIO program at Appalachian. So I have been very much involved with education all my life. I am the product of a public school system and give credit to the success that I've had in life to the fact that I had great teachers and administrators who cared a lot about me and gave me some direction, although I came from extreme poverty and from a family where no one had ever graduated from high school. I'm a very strong supporter of community colleges because I believe community colleges have been terrific in our country, particularly in North Carolina. I think we have an excellent system of community colleges, and so I am very proud of having been associated with them. They were created to be able to serve the community in which they are located, and they're able to pivot very quickly to offer the kinds of programs that the community needs, particularly in the area of workforce development. So I want to say that while I'm here to strike a part of this bill that would be spending money on new educational programs, it isn't because I have any animus toward education programs at all--and I have great experience in that area. But my amendment strikes the entire American Graduation Initiative created by title V of the bill while maintaining the privacy provisions that apply to the whole act. These privacy provisions are very important because they ensure that student information is protected from individuals not authorized to view it and that students can't be identified by any unique identifier. This is also an area that I have been very much concerned about. Title V authorizes and appropriates a total of $730 million between FY 2010 and FY 2030 and $680 million between FY 2014 and 2019. The savings from my amendment would be put towards deficit reduction. My objections to this section come from several different areas. Number one, this is duplicative of programs already authorized under the Higher Education Act and the Workforce Investment Act. The new open online education provision gives authorization grants from the Federal Government to develop curricula that will be used in online courses. In my opinion, this is a step towards Federal curriculum for schools and colleges. It also severely interferes with the authority of States and localities to determine the curriculum that schools provide. This provision also wastes taxpayer money to federally fund an online course initiative that's already being provided by 1,000 colleges and universities across the country. I am also concerned about a provision in that section which says, ``The Secretary is authorized to make grants to other appropriate entities.'' Is it possible that ACORN could receive funding through this broad statement? Can the majority promise me on the record that $1 is not now nor will it go to ACORN after passage of this bill? Again, the way this section reads, it can go to other appropriate entities. And we have seen how the folks on the other side have found every excuse in the world to fund that program. We also aren't getting any sense of responsibility from the kind of legislation that's being passed here that we're hearing so much about from the President and my colleagues on the other side. We've heard so much about how the States don't have the money to do what they need to do. This is then a welfare program for the States and the community colleges within the States. The community colleges already have programs where they evaluate what they're doing. They have to justify their programs, and the State should be setting priorities and funding those things that are most needed in the State. With unemployment as high as it is, I know that all the community colleges in North Carolina are setting priorities to work with people who need to get the education they need to get jobs, but there is so much taxpayer money wasted here on administration and bureaucracy and very little lack of accountability, despite what my colleagues have said.